Dust of Death/The Stone Man

by Lester Dent and Harold A. Davis

The legendary pulp superman battles evil in two expanded novels by Lester Dent and Harold A. Davis writing as Kenneth Robeson, incorporating never-before-published text from the original manuscripts.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932806776
• ISBN13: 9781932806779
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Nostalgia Ventures
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 7.0" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

2 classic Doc novels in this new reprint series.

Nostalgia Ventures and Anthony Tollin have teamed up to do a comprehensive reprint of several Street & Smith pulp heroes. At present, they are doing double reprints of The Shadow and Doc Savage. Shortly, they will start new series reprinting The Avenger and The Whisperer. All have complete pulp texts (no edits or removals, like past reprints), tho reset so its easier to read, the original illustrations, reprinted covers (one is used as the cover of the book, but both original pulp covers are shown on the back), and several additional articles and additions. Hopefully, they can succeed to reprinting all these characters in these new editions, they are all excellent. While all the Doc Savage novels were reprinted by Bantam, for those (like me) who have these reprints, the reason for getting these new volumes is the chance to read the original stories (WITHOUT the editing that occured in the Bantams, including in a few rare cases a LOT of text), see the original illustrations and covers, and the great additional articles. This volume (#10 in their series) reprints "Dust of Death" (Oct 35) and "The Stone Man" (Oct 39). We get the cover of "Dust of Death" as the cover of this volume, and both original pulp covers are on the back. "Dust of Death" is another Harold David/Lester Dent novel. This one is also restored with over 4000 words cut by S & S. This novel is based on a South American border war, dealing with a threat there. "The Stone Man" is another great lost race novel. Extras in this volume include: "Restorations in Bronze" by series editor Anthony Tollin, on restoring text to "Dust of Death" which had been cut by Street & Smith, something that happened in about 2 dozen novels. An Intermission article by pulp historian Will Murray, which gives background on the writting of these 2 novels.

Better Chemistry!

This "restored" edition of Dust of Death does, as another reviewer stated, go a long way towards making this a better adventure. It is more detailed, nuanced, and comprehensible. Of course it is most famous for introducing Chemistry, Ham's pet foil, so it wouldn't have mattered in the canon if it were writ on a bar napkin. But this truly does help. Also proves that there is such a thing as a bad edit. Let's not forget The Stone Man. This is, I believe, the only "lost race" adventure set in America. Usually Doc finds these cities and civilizations tucked away in remote deserts or jungles, far from the prying eyes of mankind. This was an interesting way to locate one inside the United States. Also, the classic "all white" ancient race where none should exist had a plausible scientific explanation here, unlike some other old pulps of that era.

Another great volume

Dust of Death was never on my list of favorite Doc Savage novels for a number of reasons, mostly because of the villain revelation and remnants of ghost writer Harold A. Davis' plotting. But this version, with nearly 5000 words of Lester Dent text restored after an overzealous editor hacked it out of the original pulp version, goes a long ways towards making this a much better Doc adventure. The villain problem is not corrected and doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, but otherwise most of the plot has been smoothed out and it's an enjoyable romp. Even the introduciton of Ham's pet whatisit, Chemistry, didn't seem as annoying this time around. Much improved, though still not one to land on my favorite list. The second novel, however, The Stone Man, is a personal favorite and worth the price of admission. A bit of chopped prose has been restore to this one too, makign a great novel even better.