(As Dave suggested in his Mad Mesa thread - 'Trying to put stuff on
the board so there's something there besides the troll.')
I read this one while visiting the parents o'er Christmas - I tend to
take a Doc over there whenever I visit, and this was both accesible on
the shelf and looked like not too much of a dud, i. e. according to my
Master List was a genuine Dent rather than a sub-contractor. I wasn't
expecting it to be anywhere near the standard of _The Lost Oasis_ or
_The Sargasso Ogre_, in fact I was expecting it to be distinctly
inferior. As it happened, I was pleasantly suprised. At no point did I
continue reading solely because I'd started so I'll finish. I did
wonder whether it was going to turn out to be one of those with no
explanation of the pseudo-science or supernatural, but in the last
couple of chapters Dent pulls a rabbit out of his hat and explains the
eponymous avians in a rational manner... okay, it stretches credulity,
but this is Doc Savage, not the Bronte sister's Yorkshire moors.
We get the Dentesque one-off characters Hobo Jones and Fiesta
Robertson for several chapters before Doc makes an appearance, but
they are very capable of sustaining our interest. In fact, I'd say one
of those Docs with characters capable of carrying a story on their own
(I think Doc Hermes agrees with me on this point, if I recall his
review correctly).
The MacGuffin is something other than the burning birds of the title,
and an ingenious idea of Dent's.
Overall: 7 out of 10. Don't recommend this to your friends and family
who don't know Doc, but it's a goodie for the Doc fans.
T Guy
|
