A mysterious jellylike creature is terrorizing the Indian Dome Oil Field! The Man of Bronze and his five fantastic aides descend upon Oklahoma to do battle with dastardly Tomahawk Tant — and uncover the infernal secret of the weird monster from the depths of the earth.
This one has one of the best Bantam covers which is one of the high points of this book. The story has the usual twists and turns but did not grab my attention like finer Docs do. This one does feature an actual use for Doc’s trilling! I’ve always been kind of on the fence with the trilling but in this one is does serve a purpose. A mediocre Doc all around.
Echoing Andrew’s comments, this is one of the best Pfeiffer covers. It shows Pfeiffer’s real understanding of colors and textures and planes of light. I’d love to have this as a poster. The adventure, though, is one that seems mediocre at best. I think the Doc stories that are based in the lower Midwest (where Dent lived most of the time) are the weakest. This is one of them.
Monk tells Vida Carlaw at one point that “Your native land seems to have made headlines this morning.” The site of the adventure is Tulsa, Oklahoma, a city which is mentioned fequently in Dent’s Doc books. However, later in “Jiu San” we are told that Monk’s hometown is none other than Tulsa, and he is therefore an Oklahoma native. So how come he says “your” and not “our” in his comment to Vida?
This one was awful, just awful. It reminded me more of a Scooby- Doo episode than a Doc Savage novel
This was not bad for the late 30s and certainly better than the WW2-era Docs to come.
Not much high adventure but a solid thriller.
The cover painting was merely OK. Check out Doc’s out-of-proportion left hand in the painting – arrrgh!
I really enjoyed this one. I read it early on in my aquaintance with The Man Of Bronze, but even so, upon re-reading it 20 years later, it still held up for me. The final revelation of Tomahawk Tant’s real identity was a total surprise; usually the head villain’s identity in the majority of stories does seem fairly obvious. One small observation… The scene where Doc straightens the course of a dirigible seems to be repeated from Murder Mirage – or was my memory playing tricks?