Forgotten Books: Empire of Doom - Grant Stockbridge (Norvell Page)

(This post originally appeared in slightly different form on June 26, 2005.)


Back in 1969, I picked up a couple of paperbacks in a drugstore in Stephenville, Texas, while I was on the way to Brownwood with my parents. They were wrapped together in plastic, in a "buy one, get the other free" ploy. Their titles? THE SPIDER STRIKES and THE WHEEL OF DEATH. They were reprints of the first two stories from the long-running pulp series about the crimefighter known as The Spider.

By this time I'd been reading the paperback reprints of Doc Savage and The Shadow for quite a while and was fairly familiar with pulp magazines. I hadn't heard of The Spider, but the books looked interesting and exciting, so I didn't hesitate to buy them. I read and enjoyed both of them and would have bought more books in the series, but I didn't run across them. Paperback distribution was much more haphazard in those days, when there were still hundreds of independent book distributors. It was several years later before I came across used copies of the other two Spider novels Berkley published. By that time I had learned that the first two books, the ones I'd read, were somewhat atypical of the series. They were also the only ones written by R.T.M. Scott. The others were by somebody named Grant Stockbridge. I read those two later paperbacks and was hooked on the crazily plotted, sometimes illogical, but always fast-paced and exciting adventures of The Spider. Naturally, the reprint series came to an end after four books, and I couldn't afford to buy original Spider pulps. They were already highly sought after and out of my price range.

Over the years, a few more reprints trickled out from various publishers, some of them small presses, others mass market paperbacks. I bought them all. I even came across one Spider pulp in an antique store and gladly paid the five bucks someone wanted for it. Then, a few years ago, the Spider novels began to be reprinted as handsome trade paperbacks under a variety of imprints. I've bought and read quite a few of these, and today, after many years, I finally read the fifth novel in the series, the one that was promised as a Berkley reprint but never appeared: EMPIRE OF DOOM.

Grant Stockbridge was a house name, and the author responsible for most of the Spider novels -- and the reputation the series has today -- was Norvell Page. EMPIRE OF DOOM is Page's third Spider novel. As an early effort, the plot hangs together better than some -- it was later in the series before Page's plots got really goofy. In this one, a gang calling itself the Green Hand gets hold of a terrible flesh-eating gas and threatens to turn it loose on various cities unless huge ransoms are paid. This extortion on a gigantic scale is a well-used plot -- think about Ian Fleming's James Bond novel THUNDERBALL, for instance -- but Page was one of the first to come up with it. There are a few minor twists to the plot, but mostly this novel is one nerve-wracking adventure after another as Richard Wentworth, the dashing, wealthy playboy who is really The Spider, tries to foil the schemes of the Green Hand and uncover the identity of the gang's leader. Only once that I noticed did Page lose control and throw in some developments that make no sense. That's pretty good for him.

The real appeal of the Spider series is the amount of punishment -- physical, mental, and emotional -- that Page puts Richard Wentworth through. Some pulp fans insist that Wentworth is almost as psychotic as the villains he fights. How could he not be, after all the punishment he takes? The reader is dragged along through all these ordeals, and reading a Spider novel can be exhausting, if rewarding. Many fans have advised me not to read too many of them too close together. That's good advice, I think. I love 'em, but it's better to space them out a little.

Tractor Girl Now Available

What's TRACTOR GIRL, you ask?  Well, it's my new hardboiled crime novel set in Brown County, Texas, in 1951 (or thereabouts).  If you're thinking that with a title like that it's got to be an homage to Charles Williams and the old Gold Medal novels, you'd be right, sort of.  That's what it started out as.  But it turned out to be fairly short (36,000 words), so now I'm saying it's my homage to the old Ace Doubles and authors such as J.M. Flynn and Bob McKnight.  And as you might expect, I had a heck of a lot of fun writing it.  Here's what the copy on the Amazon page says:


Small-time crook Nick Paulson was pulled back from the brink of death by a blond goddess on an old red tractor. Wounded in an attempted mob execution, Nick thinks that the Texas farm where he finds himself recuperating from his injuries will be a good place to hide out from the men who want to kill him. But what he discovers there might turn out to be even more dangerous . . .

If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, the book is available now for both the Kindle and the Nook, and a trade paperback edition is in the works.

The Ultimates, Volume 2: Homeland Security - Mark Millar

Okay, after giving THE ULTIMATES, VOLUME 1: SUPER-HUMAN a mixed review last week, I have to say that I enjoyed the second volume in the series, HOMELAND SECURITY, considerably more. Maybe it's just that I was more used to the characters by the time I read it and was able to appreciate it on its own merits as a story rather than an alternative take on the characters and continuity I grew up on.


In this arc, the Ultimates wind up taking on an invasion of alien shapeshifters. Could we be talking about the Skrulls, even though they're not called that? Well, maybe. There's a ton of action, rendered in fine fashion by Bryan Hitch, and while I'm still not sure about Mark Millar's characterizations, I have to admit that he does a good job with Captain America, including one great line that made me laugh out loud. I still prefer the original versions, but I may have to read some of the other collections featuring the Ultimates.

Mark Finn's Toastmaster Speech at ArmadilloCon

PWA Banquet Open to the Public

An update from Bob Randisi:

Thrills! Chills! Dinner! Cocktails! Awards! The 30th annual PWA Shamus Awards Banquet will be Friday night, September 16, from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. at a St. Louis institution. No, we're not telling you which institution it is. It's a suprise - a great surprise, trust us, and transportation will be provided from the hotel. Tickets are $60, and we have lots of room for everyone (the event is open to the public), so email Bob Randisi at RRandisi@aol.com right this very minute for more information and to order your ticket.

Tuesday's Overlooked TV: Good Morning, World

Bill Persky and Sam Denoff worked on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW and wrote many of that series' classic episodes such as "That's My Boy?" and "Coast to Coast Big Mouth".  They also produced the series during its last couple of years.  After the Van Dyke show ended its run, the next thing Persky and Denoff did was create another sitcom, GOOD MORNING, WORLD, and that's what I'm looking back at this week.

GOOD MORNING, WORLD was also set in the entertainment industry, in this case radio.  Joby Baker, who played a bullfighter on a couple of episodes of the van Dyke show, played a morning drive time disc jockey named David Lewis.  Ronnie Schell, a prolific supporting actor on Sixties sitcoms, was his partner Larry Clarke (making them Lewis and Clarke, of course).  Persky and Denoff followed the same formula as before and had funny stuff happening at the radio station (which was managed by Billy De Wolfe) and at home, where Dave was married to perky Linda (played by Julie Parrish).  Most people who remember this series, though, probably remember it because Dave and Linda's ditsy neighbor Sandy was played by Goldie Hawn in a breakout role that led to her being cast on LAUGH-IN a year later.

I would have sworn that this series ran a year or two earlier, while THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW was still on the air, but as always, IMBD is our friend and tell us that it ran for one season (I remembered that) in 1967 and '68.  While I haven't seen any of the episodes since then, I remember it fondly.  I've always liked Persky and Denoff's writing, and the set-up, though a familiar one, works well.  GOOD MORNING, WORLD is a forerunner of sorts to the admittedly superior WKRP IN CINCINNATI.  Having been around small-market radio, I have a distinct appreciation for how goofy it is in real life, and that translates well into sitcom terms.

I'm not sure why GOOD MORNING, WORLD wasn't successful enough to run more than one season.  I liked it and would have liked to see it hang around for a while and develop.  But then, as now, the network executives didn't come to me and ask my opinion.  The entire series is available on DVD.  I'll catch up on it one of these days, if I can ever find the time.

ArmadilloCon/Jack Cullers

I spent the past three days in Austin, attending the 33^rd annual ArmadilloCon, the premier literary science fiction convention in the Southwest, as it's known.  And I had a great time visiting with (let me see if I can remember everybody) Bill and Judy Crider, Joe Lansdale, Kasey Lansdale, Scott and Sandi Cupp, Willie Siros, Richard and Becky Moore, Mark Finn, Rick Klaw, Dave Hardy, Bradley Denton, Aaron Allston, A.T. Campbell and . . . Aaargh!  I know I'm forgetting somebody.  My sincere apologies.  I'm not as young as I used to be, and these conventions, not to mention the driving to and from them, wear me out more than they used to.

But I had a fine time, no doubt about that.  Mark Finn's toastmaster speech during the opening ceremonies was a highlight, as was the panel he chaired on Apes in Science Fiction and Fantasy.  The panels I took part in were all good, too, as were the ones I attended as a member of the audience.  Overall, this was one of the best SF conventions I've been to.

Away from the convention but also in Austin, I had the chance to meet and visit with Jack Cullers, one of the Pulpfest organizers, who was in town visiting his son.  Jack is known to just about everybody in pulp fandom, and it was great to meet him and talk about pulps for a little while.  One of these years I'm going to make it to Pulpfest.  That's one of the things I really have to do.

So tiring or not, it was a great weekend and left me with my writing batteries recharged and ready to get back to work!

Saturday Morning Western Pulp: Famous Western, November 1938

This is another cover featuring a Cowboy, a Geezer, and a Redhead, but I don't think it was painted by Tom Lovell. (It might be; I don't have a great eye for artists.) It has a fairly impressive line-up of authors, too, with novelettes by Eugene Cunningham, Frederick Bechdolt, and E.B. Mann. Jack Bertin, who I believe was related to Peter Germano (better known as Barry Cord), has a short story in the issue, and there's an article by S. Omar Barker. I think this one would be well worth reading.

Forgotten Books: Dial "M" for Man - Orrie Hitt

There I was, in the mood to read another Orrie Hitt novel, when what should arrive in my mailbox but an advance copy of the latest Stark House double volume, THE CHEATERS/DIAL "M" FOR MAN, by none other than Orrie Hitt. This book will be out in October, and it features not only the two novels but also a fine introduction by Brian Ritt (a revised version of his essay "The Sleazy Side of the Street", which first appeared on this blog), and an equally fine afterword and Hitt bibliography by Michael Hemmingson. As someone who played a small part in reviving interest in Hitt's work (along with Frank Loose, who produced a fine blog essay on Hitt's novel I'LL CALL EVERY MONDAY), I'm very happy to see these two novels reprinted and hope that the book sells well enough to warrant more Orrie Hitt reprints.

But in the meantime, I'm going to stretch a point and call Hitt's DIAL "M" FOR MAN a Forgotten Book, because the Stark House volume isn't out yet and this novel has been out of print since its original Beacon Books edition in 1962. Of the two books in the reprint volume, I chose to read this one first for a very personal reason: the protagonist is a TV repairman.


Now, some of you already know that my dad was a TV repairman for many years. In the early Fifties, sensing how popular TV was going to be and realizing there would be a need for people to work on them, he took a correspondence course in TV repair and then went to a trade school in Kentucky for six weeks to get some hands-on experience. He was already working in the aircraft industry and continued to do so for many years, but he also fixed TVs as a sideline, so I grew up around torn-apart TV sets, vacuum tubes, soldering irons, and more extension cords than you've ever seen in your life. (A bit of wisdom from my father: "If you ever fall out of an airplane, try to grab an extension cord. It'll get tangled and hang up on something before you hit the ground." He also taught me that if you take a TV apart, all the screws that came out of it don't necessarily have to go back into it, because "it ain't goin' anywhere.") I never really took to TV repair myself, although I worked for him for a while and got considerably better at it than the average person. I could diagnose and repair maybe half the problems I encountered.


Anyway, I could go on, but this is a Forgotten Books post, not an autobiography. At one time in Orrie Hitt's life, he also worked as a TV repairman, and I can tell you, he really nails that background in DIAL "M" FOR MAN. Dealing with the public, keeping up with the work in the shop and the service calls, the difficulty getting parts, trying to make ends meet . . . it's all there. I'm not sure anybody was ever better than Hitt at capturing the details of everyday life for struggling blue-collar workers.


Like a lot of prolific writers, Hitt would usually fall back on a specific set of plot elements, and that's true here. The protagonist is torn between two women, he struggles economically, there are forces beyond his control conspiring against him, an unwanted pregnancy crops up, the possibility of murder begins to look more and more appealing . . . The trick that Hitt pulls off consistently is to take these plot elements and work changes on them, which he does to nice effect in DIAL "M" FOR MAN. I've read enough of his novels by now that I knew where the story was going to end up, but I didn't always know how it was going to get there. Anyway, what makes Hitt's novels well worth reading are those little touches of everyday life and the sheer desperation that grips his characters as fate clamps down on them. If you want a true picture of certain segments of society in the Fifties and early Sixties, I suspect you're more likely to find it in an Orrie Hitt novel than in most of the mainstream fiction of that era. To see what I'm talking about, you can pick up this Stark House volume when it becomes available.


Heck, I'll bet you can even go ahead and pre-order it if you want to. Now, hand me that solderin' iron. Got a loose connection here on this resistor . . . or maybe it's that dang horizontal output tube . . .

Rancho Diablo Trailer

Here's another book trailer Livia made, for the Rancho Diablo series this time.