In one of the comments on a previous post, my buddy Steve Mertz says:
I've never read a Rick Brant novel but I am a big Lester Dent fan, and the following is from Will Murray's superb article, "The Secret Kenneth Robesons," which is the definitive Dent bio thus far. It appeared some 25 or more years ago in Murray's DUENDE fanzine.
By 1948, Dent's pulp markets, including Doc Savage, were starting to dry up. Murray writes, "Dent reverted to juvenile writing with a series of boy's books he wrote for Grosset & Dunlap under the name John Blaine between 1947 to 1958. The Rick Brant series has never before been linked with Dent but he is clearly the author. He seems to have written all of the novels from #1 to #15, whereupon a Hal Goodwin reportedly took over the series."
I read this in Will's article, too, although I had forgotten where I'd seen the Lester Dent/Rick Brant connection mentioned. For years I believed it to be true. I wanted it to be true, because I was a big Doc Savage fan and as I noted previously also a big fan of the Rick Brant series. In fact, the second book in the series, THE LOST CITY, was probably my favorite book when I was around twelve years old. The writing in this one really sounds like Dent's work.
And yet, Rick Brant fandom (this site, for example) seems to be convinced that Hal Goodwin wrote all the books and Lester Dent had nothing to do with them. The evidence they have, including interviews with Goodwin, seems pretty convincing. And yet . . . and yet . . . I know there are cases where the actual authorship of a book is buried so deeply that it's almost impossible to determine. I've written books where literally only three or four people in the world know about my involvement. I'm sure other writers could say the same thing. So do I hold out hope that maybe Lester Dent really did have something to do with those Rick Brant books? Or is that just wishful thinking on my part, being a Dent fan?
I don't know, but if anybody has any concrete evidence either way, I'd be happy to see it. In the meantime, if I can put my hands on a copy of THE LOST CITY, maybe I'll reread it. It's been a while since the last time I did.
UPDATE: I've been in touch with Will Murray, and he now believes that Dent didn't write any of the Rick Brant books after all. But I think that Hal Goodwin must have read some of the Doc Savage novels. The similarities between the two series are striking, and the Doc Savage pulp magazine was still being published when Goodwin started the Rick Brant series. Even the titles of many of the Rick Brant books sound like Doc Savage titles. I'm not implying anything improper on Goodwin's part at all, just floating the theory that he could have been influenced by Dent's work, and there's nothing wrong with that.
5 comments:
I love these kinds of mysteries. If there's a connection I'm sure you'll find it.
I've been to that Brant site and yes indeed, The Goodwin Loyalists vehemently insist that Goodwin's authorship is authentic. And yet, and yet...Murray had gained the confidence of Dent's widow who granted Will complete access to Dent's files, which I assume is the source of Murray's claim. Goodwin certainly wouldn't be the first "author" to deny the existence of a ghost. It would be interesting to get Murray's response to this call for "concrete" evidence. Will, are you out there?
Some of us Rick Brant fans do not believe that Hal Goodwin wrote all the books. A couple were probably written by Sam Epstein, who wrote the Ken Holt series, similar to Rick Brant and via the same agency. We've also found where the author of a few of the books used characters from other books published previously and 'similar' and 'word-by-word'passages from those books. Goodwin was a pulp writer too, and probably knew Dent. They were all using similar themes back then
Goodwin's heirs do own the copyrights for Rick Brant, so they say, and have authorized new editions from Applewood Books of some of the hard-to-find title.
The classic example of those falsely claiming authorship is Harriet Adams of the Stratemeyer Syndicate who claimed to have written all the Nancy Drews. Then it came out in a 1980's court case between Grosset & Dunlap and Simon and Schuster that she had not written them, other writers had, namely Mildred Wirt Benson.
The Rick Brant fans who believe Goodwin wrote all the titles jump on anyone who disagrees, but they offer no proof whatsoever that Goodwin did in fact write all the books. Those of us who know style and content can easily discern that all the books were not written by the same person.
Stratomiker,
Interesting comments, and I appreciate you taking the time to post them. I picked up some of the Brant books at the library earlier this week (SEA GOLD, 100 FATHOMS UNDER, and THE PHANTOM SHARK) and plan to read them soon. I own copies of most of the series, but they're boxed up somewhere and probably would take a while to find. Since the local library has quite a few of them I figured I would read their copies. I enjoy this sort of literary detective work, trying to figure out who wrote what based on the style and other identifying characteristics of books.
Hi James! Yes, being a 'literary detective' is fun although at times discoveries can cause a stir among die-hard fans. SEA GOLD is pretty much a rehash of a Doc Savage plot, and Lester Dent also later wrote a juvenile with the similar line. In 100 FATHOMS UNDER you'll meet Otera, the cook on the Tarpon, who appears in an earlier book, 10,000 LEAGUES OVER THE SEA by William Albert Robinson, as Etera. In it he has many adventures as a cook on a round-the-world cruise, including being a captive of an Arab Emir, a prototype adventure for the later Rick Brant book THE VEILED RAIDERS. THE PHANTOM SHARK is my absolute favorite Rick Brant book, and in it you'll meet Barthelemi, who appears in an earlier book about New Caledonia, CANNIBAL ISLAND by H. Priday. Happy reading!
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