• Originally published in Doc Savage Magazine, March 1938
• Reprinted by Bantam as DS # 50
• Lester Dent writing as Kenneth Robeson
"A fiery red flash bursts through the silence of the night… A dying green man insists he’s been held captive on the moon… A small blue capsule conceals an unearthly medallion. Can the invincible Man of Bronze piece together this weird puzzle in time to save the world from the devilish merchants of international war?”
Such is the plot synopsis on the back of the Bantam edition. Sounds like yet another rip-roarin’ classic pulp adventure from the mind of Lester Dent, right? Well, the title’s groovy and I dig the James Bama cover art, but the novel itself is another thing entirely.
Doc and company go up against a SPECTRE-like espionage/terror ring fomenting war between European nations. (These countries are never explicitly identified due to an edict of Dent’s original publisher, but are obviously supposed to be Italy and Britain.) Employing one of his best disguises, that of the smart-aleck gangster “Behemoth”, the bronze man infiltrates the ring but fails to uncover the leader’s grand scheme and true identity before he’s found out and forced to escape. While Doc single-handedly thwarts the hijacking of an Italian submarine in Chesapeake Bay, his five assistants and cousin Pat are captured by the gang and taken to a secret rocket site hidden in a Maine forest. They are to be transported to the moon and held prisoner there! (Not really… The villain’s “moon base” is a ridiculously elaborate hoax, built in a crater in Greenland.)
Plotting is noticeably slapdash even for the terminally deadline-pressured Dent, capped by an egregiously stupid climax. Fan favorite Patricia “Pat” Savage — glamorous, sassy and tough — is inexplicably portrayed as a whiny bubblehead. The master villain is particularly silly… What self-respecting baddie with delusions of grandeur would dub himself “The Man on the Moon”? Not only that, to disguise his voice he holds a medallion between his teeth — edgewise — when speaking via radio or beneath a space helmet. Yes, that’s the entire significance of the “unearthly medallion” that the “dying green man” risks his life for.
The biggest mystery is why The Man on the Moon’s henchmen just don't bust out laughing whenever he’s issuing orders.
Grade: D-
• Reprinted by Bantam as DS # 50
• Lester Dent writing as Kenneth Robeson
"A fiery red flash bursts through the silence of the night… A dying green man insists he’s been held captive on the moon… A small blue capsule conceals an unearthly medallion. Can the invincible Man of Bronze piece together this weird puzzle in time to save the world from the devilish merchants of international war?”
Such is the plot synopsis on the back of the Bantam edition. Sounds like yet another rip-roarin’ classic pulp adventure from the mind of Lester Dent, right? Well, the title’s groovy and I dig the James Bama cover art, but the novel itself is another thing entirely.
Doc and company go up against a SPECTRE-like espionage/terror ring fomenting war between European nations. (These countries are never explicitly identified due to an edict of Dent’s original publisher, but are obviously supposed to be Italy and Britain.) Employing one of his best disguises, that of the smart-aleck gangster “Behemoth”, the bronze man infiltrates the ring but fails to uncover the leader’s grand scheme and true identity before he’s found out and forced to escape. While Doc single-handedly thwarts the hijacking of an Italian submarine in Chesapeake Bay, his five assistants and cousin Pat are captured by the gang and taken to a secret rocket site hidden in a Maine forest. They are to be transported to the moon and held prisoner there! (Not really… The villain’s “moon base” is a ridiculously elaborate hoax, built in a crater in Greenland.)
Plotting is noticeably slapdash even for the terminally deadline-pressured Dent, capped by an egregiously stupid climax. Fan favorite Patricia “Pat” Savage — glamorous, sassy and tough — is inexplicably portrayed as a whiny bubblehead. The master villain is particularly silly… What self-respecting baddie with delusions of grandeur would dub himself “The Man on the Moon”? Not only that, to disguise his voice he holds a medallion between his teeth — edgewise — when speaking via radio or beneath a space helmet. Yes, that’s the entire significance of the “unearthly medallion” that the “dying green man” risks his life for.
The biggest mystery is why The Man on the Moon’s henchmen just don't bust out laughing whenever he’s issuing orders.
Grade: D-
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