Much as I love the Doc Savage books, that always bothered me about some of
them, even as a kid. I much preferred the ones in which Doc showed up
almost right away.
"Dave" <mattie04@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:1190916064.663836.317280@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> A staple of DOC SAVAGE stories is the "slow opening." Something
> mysterious is happening to people. Sometimes they're killed;
> sometimes they go to New York City, and are killed there. Other times
> they get off a last-minute telegram of phone call. Quite often DOC
> makes to appearance before Chapter 3, Sometimes it's as late as
> Chapter 6.
>
> I've started rereading one like that right now -- name slips my mind
> at the moment, but it's the one with the Bantam cover with DOC looking
> at 4 giant ferrets. And I think -- why do they always wait so long to
> introduce DOC? Wouldn't it have made more sense to introduce him
> sooner? A chapter 2 intro, ala THE DESTROYER? Show him doing
> something heroic or fantastic right in the first chapter, and have
> that chapter end with, "Little did DOC SAVAGE know that in far off
> Congobongoland, and mysterious menace to world peace was already
> emerging from the primordial swamp...."
>
> Compare with THE SPIDER, with the fever-pitch already there by the
> third paragraph. Even THE SHADOW ususally makes an appearance in the
> first or second chapter
>
> dave
>
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