FORGOTTEN BOOKS: THE SARGASSO OGRE and FEAR CAY

The Sargasso Ogre by "Kenneth Robeson" (Lester Dent)  (first published in Doc Savage Magazine, October 1933; published in paperback as #18 in the Bantam series of Doc Savage Adventures, 1967)

Fear Cay by "Kenneth Robeson" (Lester Dent)  (first published in Doc Savage Magazine, September 1934; published in paperback as #11 in the Bantam series of Doc Savage Adventures, 1966)

After reading reading the Doc Savage adventure The Red Skull (my Friday Forgotten Book last week), I plunged in to a few more early Doc Savage tales:  The Sargasso Ogre (#8 in the original chronology) and Fear Cay (#19 in the original; chronology).  The Bantam book series, as well as the later series of reprints from Sanctum Books, were published out of order.

These early Doc Savage novels tended to verge on pulp fantasy, many taking place in exotic parts of the world.  In 1943, times had changed enough that new editor Charles Moran changed the formula for the Doc Savage tales to suspense and realism, but it's the earlier Doc Savage novels that warmed the cockles of my heart.

As The Sargasso Ogre opens, Doc and his team of five aides -- "Johnny, the world's greatest expert on geology and archaeology, Renny, a world-famous construction engineer. Long Tom, an electrical genius, Ham, the dapper, Harvard-educated lawyer, and Monk, considered one of the world's greatest chemists -- have flown into Alexandria, Egypt, on the long-vanished Zeppelin-type airship, Aeromunde, after having defeated the evil men who had enslaved workers for years to work on their hidden diamond mine.  Doc and his men had also brought along a huge chest filled with diamonds worth millions, which Doc plans to sell off piecemeal (so as not to swamp the market) and use all the proceeds to fund his various hospitals and charities.  The chest of diamonds, as well as Doc and his crew, are set to sail on the liner Cameronic the next morning.  But somebody wants to stop them from sailing on the ship.  Why?

Aboard the ship are some forty or fifty thugs, each sailing first-class, under the leadership of a villain named Bruze.  They take over the ship, destroy all communication devices, hold the regular passengers and crew hostage, set a new course.  Doc and his people are helpless to stop them for fear of having the hostages killed.  The Cameronic sails slowly for weeks, ending up in the Sargasso Sea, that strange, seemingly endless area of floating seaweed, strange creatures, and ships that have been lost for ages.  They soon find themselves in the center of the Sea where the vegetation is thickest, with no way to sail out of it.   Doc and his men have managed to regain control of the Cameronic, preventing Bruze from unloading the diamonds and the five million dollars worth of gold bullion that also happens to be on board.  Bruze's gang is heavily armed and headquartered on an iron fortress in the center of sea.  Months have passed and the stalemate continues.

But wait.  There is another occupied ship in the Sea.  This one is occupied by females of all nationalities who have been trapped in the sea, many from ships that have been stuck there for generations -- some of the women were born on these ships and have never known anything else.  their leader is a fierce redhead who distrusts Doc and all men, especially Bruze and his gang had killed all the men -- including the redhead's father -- several months before.  They have managed to keep Bruze off their ship, which also happens to hold a goodly part of Bruze's stolen treasure.

Outnumbered, outgunned, and seeming trapped forever in a fantastic sea of floating primitive life, can Doc and his Fabulous Five survive to defeat the montrous madman who has sent countless crew and passengers to their watery doom?

Fear Cay brings back Doc's beautiful cousin, Pat Savage, first encountered in The Brand of the Werewolf back in January 1934.   Pat, bored and looking for excitement, decides to drop in on Doc and, sonofagun, she finds it.  A mysterious person known as Kel Avery is supposedly flying in to New York to meet with Doc for some unknown reason.  A company called Fountain of Youth, Inc. is determined to prevent Doc from meeting the plane.  It turns out that Kel Avery is actually famed Hollywood beauty Maureen Darleen.  The bad guys kidnap her, but they also kidnap Pat Savage, who manages to convince them that she is Kel Avery in order to have them let the actress go.  Also in the mix is Dan Thunden, a giant of a man who is Doc Savage's equal in strength and speed,.  Thunden claims to be one hundred thirty-one years old, and to have spend the last ninety years marooned on an uncharted Caribbean island, where there is a rare plant that has given him immortality. 

Doc follows the bad guys and Thunden to the island, which is riddled with caves and deadly traps set by Thunden over the years.  Also on the island is a mysterious force which can strip the flesh off a person in minutes, leaving only skeletal remains.   Also, it seems that every adventure that Doc undertakes has the chief bad guy employing dozens of murderous thugs, all determined to put paid to Doc and his crew.  And somewhere in this deadly maze is both Pat Savage and the solution to the century-old mystery of Fear Cay.

Great fun.  Fast-moving pulp that brings me back to my early teens in those wondrous days before I discovered girls.  (There were also wondrous days after I discovered girls, but those days were of a completely different caliber.)

I may dip into a few more of Doc Savage's adventures before moving on.