006 09/33 The Lost Oasis

Posted by on Sep 28, 1993 in 1933, Bantam 001-012, baumhofer, nanovic, novel, pulp, rosa | 10 comments

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While seeking to solve the mystery of ” the trained vampire murders,” Doc Savage and his amazing crew suddenly find themselves prisoners of Sol Yuttal and Hadi-Mot aboard a hijacked Zeppelin. Their deadly destination is a fabulous lost diamond mine guarded by carnivorous plants and monstrous, bloodsucking bats.


  • Scott Kimball

    I first read this book when I was about 12. 25 years later, I read it again and enjoyed it even more. Kept my interest the whole way through with appropriately odd villians, killer bats, and hand to hand combat with fearless knife-wielding tribal warriors aboard a mysterious zeppelin. The description of the lost oasis itself really gave me a vicarious thrill of actually discovering someplace truly incredible for myself. Thumbs way up for this one.

  • Scott Kimball

    I first read this book when I was about 12. 25 years later, I read it again and enjoyed it even more. Kept my interest the whole way through with appropriately odd villians, killer bats, and hand to hand combat with fearless knife-wielding tribal warriors aboard a mysterious zeppelin. The description of the lost oasis itself really gave me a vicarious thrill of actually discovering someplace truly incredible for myself. Thumbs way up for this one.

  • Barry Ellis

    Loved the bats & the greasy bad guys! The first, and perhaps the best, of the “Doc-in-a-dirgible” stories.

  • http://www.howardhopkins.com Howard Hopkins

    Loved this one! The scene on the wharf with the fluttering death was excellent. Great story, great villains.

  • Gary

    Doc Savage – Mass Murderer? And the slaves who dug up the diamonds didn’t get a share?? Marvellous!

  • http://www.paulcook-sci-fi.com Paul Cook

    This book is in my top five Docs. It has all the elements we love in a Doc Savage story, plus the extra added element of hijacking a Zeppelin. I read this when I was about 16 (in 1967) and I really got a feel for the Great Depression in New York, and the action is literally non-stop. Oddly, when I read Clive Cussler’s Sahara a few years ago, I thought he might have ripped off the central conceit of this story: a diamond mine in the middle of the Sahara Desert. (I haven’t seen the movie yet, being a Doc loyalist.) Of course the name “Dirk Pitt” does have the same pulpish ring as “Doc Savage”, but NOBODY does it better than Doc. Nobody.

  • Lee Dorrance

    Fascinating, that’s the only word I can us to describe The Lost Oasis. It illicited memories of the Valley of the Vanished for me as Doc and the crew smuggle aboard the dirigible headed for a then unknown, exotic locale. Pure Doc at it’s finest.

  • Mark Carpenter

    Books like “The Lost Oasis” are why we’re still talking about Doc Savage some 70 years later. What a blast! The last half of this little masterpiece has more action, suspense and thrills than anything writers are putting out today. What’s more fun than a knife fight on a zeppelin…and what other Doc novel has a better villain death scene than this one? An absolute banquet for any Doc fan.

    If the entire series had been as good as “The Lost Oasis,” Dent would be mentioned in the same company as Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne.

  • Ryan Harvey

    If I had to select one Doc Savage story to hook a new reader, this would be the one. It’s deleriously fast-paced, inventive, and full-on nuts. I can’t imagine there’s anyone who wouldn’t find this thrilling. It’s works like this that made the pulps what they are.

  • http://DocSavageOrganised Richard Cording

    The third Doc I read, back in September 1973. Although I originally enjoyed it, upon rereading it nearly 30 years later, I found it just a little flat. The Vampire Death, however, was still a nifty little gimmick. The pulps of the ’30s had a bit of a fondness for these little critters – one of the best SPIDER novels, DEATH-REIGN OF THE VAMPIRE KING employed ‘em in droves! (Who knows, if Richard Wentworth had accompanied Doc on this adventure he would really have been in his element! One feels that he and Monk could have had a grand old time comparing notes on how to REALLY deal with the bad guys at the end.) Considering that Doc was pretty much at the beginning of his career here, it’s still reasonably enjoyable, and the world-shattering super-sagas were just around the corner …