Wed 16 Jul 2025
Diary Review: KENNETH ROBESON – The Other World.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy[9] Comments
KENNETH ROBESON – The Other World. Doc Savage #83. Bantam F3877, paperback, October 1968. Previously published in the January 1940 issue of Doc Savage Magaine.
The struggle between two fur dealers over strange and beautiful furs leads Doc Savage and his crew to an underground world, the entrance to which is hidden somewhere in the Arctic wilderness. This world still lives in prehistoric times, with the usual assortment of dinosaurs and other menacing creatures.
The villains are vicious – to stop a letter from getting to Doc Savage, they simply smash the mailbox open with a sledgehammer – and in spite of being short on science, scenes in the other world (especially the one illustrated on the [paperback] cover) are exciting, But the idea is not new, rather third – or fourth-rate by this time
Rating: **
July 16th, 2025 at 4:02 pm
I have been slowly reading the Doc Savage saga at the rate of one or two a year and should be caught up by around 2174 A.D.; then I’ll get started on the Shadow books by Maxwell Grant
July 16th, 2025 at 5:56 pm
Hi Jerry. Good for you. That’s a great goal to have. I ought to have started doing something similar back when I read this one. I bought all of the Doc Savage that Bantam did, but this is the only one I remember reading. I didn’t say so out loud when I wrote this review, but I’m sure I was disappointed. The book just wasn’t for me. I do recall reading one of the Shadow stories some time before this and enjoying it quite a bit. It was one of the digest stories from the mid to late 40s, but they were a lot harder to come by until fairly recently.
July 17th, 2025 at 7:16 am
Steve, I’m with you. I’ve read a couple dozen DOC SAVAGE paperbacks. They vary in quality. I’ve also read a number of THE SHADOW paperbacks–much more fun!
July 17th, 2025 at 12:50 pm
There’s more detective work going on in the Shadow stories, compared with Doc’s thriller/adventure novels, often with SFnal twists. Given agreement on that, hopefully, from that point on, it’s just a matter of taste.
July 18th, 2025 at 8:44 am
Fans of Doc Savage and/or the Shadow would be well advised to check out Ed Hulse’s announcement regarding his Blood ‘n’ Thunder 2025 Special Edition (wherein—full disclosure—my main man Gilbert Colon and I are also represented with, respectively, a flavorful smorgasbord of typically pulp-centric multi-media reviews and a page-to-screen analysis of the beloved 1950s SF classic This Island Earth in its magazine, book, and film versions):
https://muraniapress.com/book/blood-n-thunder-2025-special-edition/
July 19th, 2025 at 10:56 am
Very nice, Mathew, very nice. Thanks for the info!
July 18th, 2025 at 11:37 am
I have to admit I enjoy Will Murray’s DOC SAVAGE novels…though they tend to be rather long…
July 18th, 2025 at 12:48 pm
Haven’t had the pleasure yet. Thanks for the nudge!
July 18th, 2025 at 11:50 pm
Doc was always better when written by Dent just as the Shadow was always better when Gibson was at the helm. I don’t recall if this was a Dent Doc or Donovan or Bogart, but I recall finding it a bit disappointing.
Dent’s best quality was the ability to start at a run with an impossible situation and then gradually come up with a more or less reasonable explanation for it as Doc unraveled the mystery. As the series went on the later digest books tended to be a bit more grounded, but some of the early ones had some truly wonderfully insane setups that were half the fun.