The breeding ground was a walled castle completely covered over with a huge electrified net. Inside were the scum of the earth, gathered from the prisons of the world, transformed into invincible giants. Now they were ready to ravage the world -- unless Doc Savage and his mighty crew could stop them.

Does anyone know why Bama updated Baumhofer's painting for The Monsters? He didn't seem to copy any of the other pulp covers.

One of my favorite Docs! Them pinheads scared the bejabbers out of me when I was a kid!

I think in this novel Lester Dent really hit his stride. It's nearly a perfect example of all that was great about the series, and even evokes and emotional content. The "monster" pushing up through the floor in the mansion has to be one of the most frightening in the series.

Pretty eerie build up, but the unfortunate Monsters could have been "fleshed out" a little more! And how on Earth could Doc keep all the mayhem a secret, even in the 30's? 9.5/10.

Yet another winner among the early Doc stories, well-plotted and well-written by Dent. On a side note: the Batman comic book later ripped off this story with the very first issue under the Batman title in 1940 called "Dr. Hugo Strange and the Mutant Monsters". It has a plot virtually identical to this Doc tale.

I would like to echo Howard Hawkins' comment about the monster pushing up through the floor. I read this book when I was about 16 and even though I knew (from the cover) what the monsters were, I pretended that I was in Doc's shoes (and the shoes of his aides) when they confronted this menace . . . and it scared the hell out of me. I also liked the scene when the monsters were tearing up Doc's airplane that was on the shore of the lake in the middle of the night. This was one of the best science fiction Doc adventures that Lester Dent wrote. He was truly inspired. This is a book I'd recommend to anyone new to Doc.

"The Monsters" is a sturdy, competent Doc adventure — not one of the greats, but definitely in the top 30. I agree with Gary above, I wish the Monsters themselves would have been described a little more thoroughly. A scene about their transformation would have been interesting. The identity of the main villain was also pretty obvious. But I did like Doc's simple but brilliant strategy to bring down the whole gang in the final chapter.

As one reads these early books in the series, it's fun to see how Dent virtually created the lexicon for action/adventure stories — mad scientest villains, secret headquarters, plots for world domination, threats to destroy entire cities. Everyone from Ian Fleming to Bob Kane to Stan Lee to Tom Clancy owes him a huge debt of gratitude.

Like some of the previous posters, I felt the monsters could have been described in a little more detail. Other thatn the fact that they dwarfed Doc and were able to tear apart planes and houses, nothing much is mentioned about exactly how big they were. The best guess one can make is when they destroy the mansion while Doc, Monk & Ham look on. Are they actually as large as the cover(s) depict? We never really know. The Marvel comics adaptation of the novel around 1972 showed them being fairly large beings, so maybe this is one mystery that Dent decided to leave up to the imagination of the reader.

Aside from the minor rant above, a top-notch adventure!

All I can say is Mr. Ellis and Mr. Hopkins I AGREE.