Category Archives: Doc Savage

May 15, 2026 · 4:30 pm

Sing hosannas and release the doves!

This week came the day we dreaded — Wisp going to the vet! She gets warier every year, plus we can’t feed her after midnight. Which means Snowdrop can’t get any food either as they eat together.

Fortunately it was mostly smooth sailing. The cats sat by where their bowls go, but didn’t complain too much. TYG was able to grab Wisp and throw her in the big cage; after about half an hour of plaintive meowing, I took her in.

The good news: she’s in great shape. Some tartar on a back tooth, only .25 pounds heavier than last year (we’d thought she’d put on a lot more weight). And she forgave us fairly quickly.

It was a week with a lot of appointments like that, all of them turning out well. I had a dental appointment Wednesday (checkup and cleaning), then Plushie had his eye checkup later that afternoon (still in great shape). Good news, but a lot of time taken up. Plus I had to submit a bunch of invoices to our various insurers for online purchases.

The downside, of course, was that all those appointments ate up time. Plus, of course, time after each to recover and refocus my thoughts. On top of which I had a late night Tuesday and Wednesday which left me zonked on Thursday. Despite which, I got some good work done. The best thing is that I successfully formatted Southern Discomfort for Draft2Digital and Amazon. Draft2Digital is invaluable but their ebook formatting sometimes makes my Word formatting look wonky. That’s now fixed. And D2D will provide me with a PDF I can upload to Amazon.

I did some work on Savage Adventures. I really need to get to work on a cover artist ASAP. Not that I’m close to done, but once I am, I’d like to move much faster than I did with Southern Discomfort. Speaking of which, the cover is done for the digital version (Amazon needs some technical tweaks); I’ll announce a release date next week.

I read “Honey on the Grave” to the writing group. They really liked it, which was great; it’s only about my fourth draft and it usually takes many more before a story is any good. They also gave me some suggestions for polishing it, which I will look at later this month. The meeting was the reason I was up late Tuesday; we discovered Zoom was automatically recording our readings with AI and because they guy who officially hosted it is no longer with the group, we can’t do anything to turn it off. We set up a new Zoom link with myself and one of the other writers as co-hosts; however some people had bookmarked the old link rather than clicking on it from the group’s webpage so we had to go find them and tip them off. A learning experience.

Over at Atomic Junk Shop I reviewed some books about African-American films and reposted my old review about Brother From Another Planet.

On the downside, waking up late led to me missing much of my usual morning exercise and stretching sessions. Next week should be better, though — zero appointments.

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April 3, 2026 · 3:37 pm

March was a month that happened …

Despite Plushie’s fortnight of diarrhea, it was fairly productive. Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, that’s partly because of The Local Reporter switching to monthly so I didn’t have actual paying gigs distracting me. I’ll be back to work on it next week, prepping for the April issue.

I got close to 34,000 words rewritten on Let No Man Put Asunder, redrafted “Mage’s Masquerade” and “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” and proofed the first chunk of Savage Adventures. I applied for a couple of writing jobs (remote) and started checking various short fiction markets — no luck so far. And we made it through diarrhea and out the other side er, so to speak. And the multiple trips to tire places or our VW dealer.

Yes, it’s mostly Snowdrop photos today. I think he’s worth it.

This week was choppy, with enough errands Wednesday it was a struggle to get anything done. Still, overall satisfactory. I got another 3,500 words finished on Asunder (that was what I struggled to complete Wednesday). I reread “Oh the Places You’ll Go” and I think I’ve finally finished it. I’ll proof it later this month but I’m satisfied I’ve fixed everything I didn’t like (or my beta readers didn’t like). First story finished in a long while. I read “Mage’s Masquerade” to the writing group; the overall reaction was way favorable though with several slight changes. For example it comes off as if Sinclair is waaaay older than Cecily; while that’s not out of line for a Regency plot, it’s a sensitive enough subject I’m going to make it clear he’s maybe a decade her senior, nothing more.

Finding markets for two 7,000 word short stories will be a challenge. But I can always publish them in another collection of my work.

I got several thousand words of Savage Adventures proofed and polished and I started looking for a cover artist. No luck so far.

I also began editing my Hellboy Chronology. At first I was only going to update it to add one of the new Hellboy-verse TPBs. However I wound up converting it to blocks which threw the spacing and the whole look of the page out of whack. I’ve begun correcting for that, though I’m only up through the 1960s. Please be patient as I keep working. All the information is still good.

Over at Con-Tinual I talked about The Worlds of Andre Norton, Favorite Superhero Moments, the return of Superboy, now all available on FB at the links.

Week is almost over, as I’m stopping work early to cook something for TYG. Have a great weekend, y’all.

Cover by James Bama, all rights remain with current holder.

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March 6, 2026 · 5:15 pm

Everything everywhere all at once on Monday!

As I said last month, when I budgeted time off for emergencies into my year’s goals, I didn’t anticipate losing a week to dog problems this soon.

Similarly, while I budgeted several hours for errands into my plans for March, I didn’t expect to use them up last Monday.

I knew it would be a long day because we were taking the dogs to their PT session and it included Plushie’s recheck, adding time. Plus TYG had a couple of necessary errands on the way home, adding time. Still, I’d planned for that: my writing time would be all Savage Adventures. Proofing it doesn’t require the same creative energy as writing fiction and if the workday broke into chunks I could adapt to that too.

Unfortunately Trixie had been peeing in the house the past couple of days, or getting really frantic to go out, so we’d scheduled an afternoon vet visit for her. Still had hopes of getting stuff done … but on the way to PT, our rear left tire took a nail. No immediate threat — it served as its own hole plug — but once we got back I had to take it down to a tire place. They said probably a half-hour; it wasn’t. In fairness I’d asked about patching and they decided it needed replacing. I thought about getting a second opinion but TYG said go ahead and pay it. I was happy not to take more time.

So Monday was a wash as far as doing anything writerly. An hour of Savage Adventures, nothing more. However Trixie’s on antibiotics for a UTI and improving and the rehab vet is very pleased with Plush Dudley’s progress — we may not see much improvement but she doesn’t anticipate things getting worse or having to go through another surgery. Yay.

That said, the week went reasonably well; it helped that The Local Reporter is still on hiatus (I do hope we’re back in action soon, though). I got about 10,000 words done on Let No Man Put Asunder and around 7000 on The Impossible Takes a Little Longer. Part of the work on the latter book was rewriting Chapter Two — normally I don’t go back until a draft is finished but so much bugged me about the chapter I took the time to fix it.

And that was it, other than a post about awkward film endings over at Atomic Junk Shop. Yesterday the cleaners were in and that never works out well for getting anything done. Still, getting some fiction written always feels good. Ditto knowing the dogs are in good health.

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February 27, 2026 · 4:30 pm

This week, I ate my own homework

Which is to say, not much done.

In fairness, part of that carried over from last week’s dog chaos. We’ve only now reached the end of all the added drugs they’re getting. and spacing them out, adjusting them to the “don’t give with food” rules, etc. means the regimen sucks up more time (plus Plush Dudley is increasingly uncooperative about eating his meds). And Monday Trixie had her recheck at Peak Paws (our PT place) and with added errands on the way home, I wound up starting work Monday way later than usual.

(No, I don’t know why she’s sniffing Plushie).

I rewrote the introduction to Savage Adventures when it hit me that I bog down in the history of the pulps instead of selling why Doc Savage is cool to read (and read about). I turned in two Local Reporter articles, one on how Carrboro’s funding stormwater management projects and a debate in Chapel Hill on taking a stand against President Toddler’s anti-immigration raids. And I got a bunch of stuff done on various tasks — picking up pet meds, contacting contractors, etc.

And that was pretty much it. The week kind of evaporated. I always have a fear that if I let that happen once, I’ll let it happen again, and again, and I’ll end up with nothing but a hatful of rain (to borrow from the title of an old film). I know that’s not true, but still.

The flip side: as the 501(c) non-profit Local Reporter takes a two week pause I have more time but now I have less money coming in. Not that the wolf’s at the door but I do take pride in contributing to household bills.

February overall was disappointing for fiction writing. Between the dogs and the snow I got almost no fiction written. On the plus side I did complete the latest draft of Savage Adventures; updated my “in case of my death” paperwork; provided my obligatory critiques for some of the stories in Break the Sky (as it’s a collaborative anthology, we all edit each other); donated blood today; and made more money than usual, thanks to The Local Reporter. On the downside, my social life has been quiet, as either my schedule or my friends’ proved unworkable (one coffee date, very short due to an emergency on their part).

However the week wasn’t all wasted. Monday I got an FB message from a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor (an excellent paper — I subscribed for years). Between the president declaring a release of the government’s UFO-related files (I do not expect any shocking revelations) and the upcoming movie Project Hail Mary, reporter Stephen Humphries came up with the idea of interviewing me, as an expert in ET-visitor films, about movies, real-life UFO beliefs and how they interact. One reason I didn’t get more work done is that I pored over The Aliens Are Here, refreshing my mind on the subject. It paid off — it was a 45 minute interview and I think I talked intelligently for all of it. I’ll link to the article when it comes out.

On that note, have a good weekend. All rights to images remain with current holders; Doc Savage cover by James Bama.

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February 13, 2026 · 4:32 pm

The camel’s hump is an ugly lump

(Title taken from Rudyard Kipling. I’ve used it before).

Wednesday is, as we all know, hump day — once we pass it, we’re on the downhill slide toward the weekend. Lately, however, I seem to be having trouble getting over the hump. My Wednesday is a slog.

Part of that this Wednesday was Plush Dudley (seen in an older photo while he was still on cage rest). Usually he sleeps most of the afternoon. For whatever reason, he was lively. Bark. Whine. Try to get my attention. Licking my feet. A lot. I finally had to give up getting work done for the last couple of hours, though I wasn’t able to read or relax much either.

He’s still my boy.

Even before that, I was struggling to write. I had a relatively simple article to write on Carrboro’s budget discussions but it turned into a plodding exercise, though I think the results were good. Reflecting on it, I realized one problem is Monday and Tuesday evenings. Monday I work into the evening to make up for us taking the dogs to PT during the day; Tuesday I often have my Zoom writer’s group. After I finish, it’s typically another hour to take care of the dogs. I end up going to sleep later than usual and I don’t usually make it up in the morning. This Wednesday that left me tired; I also woke up late (compensating for Tuesday’s late night) which always throws me off my game. Mentally that left me behind the eight-ball.

Monday and Tuesday were productive though. I worked on Savage Adventures, went through all the books where my manuscript was unclear (why did Doc Savage do X? What exactly was the villain’s plan?) and made the corrections. This draft is done!!!!!

Next up: rereading some of my Doc Savage reference books for anything worth adding, working on the bibliography, then printing the manuscript out and proofing it. Then the writing is done and I can look at indexing (sigh), finding a cover and I’ll be ready to rock.

Thursday I put in more time writing for The Local Reporter. I got in one good story about Chapel Hill’s budget decisions — they have $3 million left over from fiscal year 2025 to spend — but nothing else. Nobody returned my calls. Annoying. However I already have the materials for one, possibly two stories for next week, and there’s a Carrboro Council meeting. So I’ll be in good shape.

Over at Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about mondegreens, the death of the Green Goblin and comic book writers as psychics.

And this blog is still getting lots more hits than average. Hi there, whoever you are. I hope you stick around. If nothing else, the pet photos are adorable.

Doc Savage cover by James Bama, all rights to images remain with current holders.

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February 6, 2026 · 4:28 pm

Not much writing done this week, but I anticipated that

Thursday I only worked a half-day because the housekeepers were here. Sitting in the spare bedroom with all the pets to keep them out of the way (and make sure Snowdrop and Wisp don’t run out) does not inspire creative work. For the first time in a few months, they showed up late enough I could have made a full work day out of it; by the time I realized that I’d turned my brain off.

And Tuesday I took one of my days off to devote to TYG and my “death document” — instructions about our finances, ordering dog drugs, when to give dog drugs, plans for our bodies. Because contrary to this Nick Cardy cover, death can come at any time. We’d like to be as much help to each other as we can.

I’ve been slack about updating the stuff I know but it turns out not much has changed since the last time I checked — Trixie has one added med, little things like that. Still it’s good to keep everything current and good to know that it is.

With Friday devoted to stuff like blogging and catching up on email, that left two days. I got another chunk of Savage Adventures rewritten, though not as much as I’d like. Then I had my work for The Local Reporter: a story on the snowfall and how local towns dealt with it (not up yet), one on how Carrboro is scoring its performance and one on what the former Chapel Hill Weekly was reporting when it started publishing in 1923 (“On the whole, Chapel Hill is ultra-conservative in the matter of hats.”).

As I mentioned a while back, they recently lost one of their government reporters so I’m doing more work. Which is good — more money — but it’s frustrating how much work I have to do to find enough stuff to write about (it consumes a surprising amount of time). The reporting and writing is relatively simple. But such is life.

I anticipate being way more productive next week.

One thing that did surprise me about this week — this blog has racked up 1,500 views the past two days. While there are times I can explain a rush in traffic, like my posts about Taylor Swift a couple of years back, I have no idea what triggered it. None of my specific posts have received a huge hit either. I’m not complaining of course and if any of y’all are reading this, thanks for visiting.

All rights to cover image remain with current holder.

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January 18, 2026 · 5:15 am

Women superheroes of WW II, psychic teens of 1970: books

LIBERTY GIRL by Barry Reese was a fun novella based on the same-name indy comic book about the eponymous Wonder Woman-like superhero vanishing in WW II and returning in the present a la Captain America (but with more thought to the gulf between Then and Now). Fun, though hardly groundbreaking; what made it work for me is that the golden-eyed, bronze-skinned protagonist is Doc Savage’s daughter (though as with my own The Savage Year they can’t spell it out). I might take a look at the comic some time, though it appears it’s only available in single issues rather than a trade paperback.

The sixth volume of BOMBSHELLS, War Stories (cover by Ant Lucia) has Amanda Waller’s new Sucide Squad stop Nazi ally Edward Nigma from unleashing the worst of the Tenebrae while large numbers of supernaturals and superhumans gather at the Siege of Leningrad where Kryptonian Faora Hu-Ul reveals her master plan for Earth. As usual this was fun, though it also feels a little too sprawling, with characters we’ve never met (like Faora) showing up at the end and other plotlines apparently vanishing (this is the final volume but perhaps there’s some resolution in the spinoff Bombshells: United).

NINETEEN SEVENTY: The Seven Book One by Sarah M. Cradit is the first in a prequel series to a mythos (the House of Crimson and Clover) that I’ve never read. Here we see the future heads of the witch clan (though like many fictional witches they seem more psionic) as teens in 1970 variously coping with first love, periods of hedonism, Duty Vs. Love, Finishing School vs. Saving the World etc. This was better than most Buy This Book In The Series Cheap offers on Kindle, enough I might pick up more in the series later. However it’s both a prequel and an installment (there are several more 1970s set books) which is a little frustrating, and suffers from repeated anachronisms such as “trophy wife” and “chill pill” as phrases. I still enjoyed it.

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July 25, 2025 · 4:22 pm

I didn’t think this would work …

Some time back I conceded the increasing demands of pet care were cutting into my time to the point working seven hour days made more sense than trying to put in eight hours. Though of course, they’re worth it.

The thing is, the last hour of the “work” day, from 4 to 5 PM, never seemed to work after that. I couldn’t quite relax but couldn’t think of anything that really filled the hour either. Well, this week I tried working all the way up to 5 … and strangely enough, that works better. I quit at 5 PM much more comfortably than at 4 PM — has the concept of “9 to 5” been that burned into me over the years? Still, I’m not complaining; getting more writing done is a good thing.

And I managed to get a lot done, even though Trixie got me up around midnight Sunday and Monday to go out and squirtle (worse, she didn’t quite make it outside). Fortunately whatever brought that on, it stopped after that.

I got some work on Savage Adventures done for the first time in a while, bringing the finished book almost up to 1939. My Local Reporter work included one story on Vimala’s Curryblossom Café, which is helping feed the victims of Tropical Storm Chantal, and a more general one on local recovery efforts. At Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about the start of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar series, then a second post on the rest of the series.

I got a lot of work done on Jekyll and Hyde. Rewriting some of the book (I need to become much more organized and systematic), reading the section on Jerry Lewis’ Nutty Professor to the writing group, and watching a couple of movies I only just stumbled across.

I’m almost done with watching the movies, though there’s a lot of TV to get through too. But given I have until the end of the year, I’m confident things will go smoothly barring some unforeseen catastrophe (and those are always possible). Fingers crossed.

Oh, and I’ve been remiss in posting about Con-Tinual online convention. I’m on a couple of panels about breaking writer’s block and one on best and worst comics adaptations.

Also one on Lovecraftian horror —

— and superheroes and mutants. All of these will show up on Con-Tinual’s YouTube channel eventually.

Cover by Frank Frazetta. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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May 7, 2025 · 5:15 am

I don’t hate the game but I don’t play it.

I picked up THE SAVAGE DYARIES: The Collected Doc Savage Essays of Dafydd Neal Dyar, Volume One, to read his article on the Doc Savage novel Land of Long Juju. I knew from a reference elsewhere that Dyar had discovered that it was originally set in Latin America, which explains things like African tribes who speak Mayan and shrink heads — Donovan changed the setting but not the details (so I’m sure the dreadful racism would have been equally dreadful in the original).

The essay didn’t provide any information why it got switched but I was still glad to read it. There are also other interesting stuff — a detailed discussion on the disappeared airship that inspired part of The Lost Oasis, speculation whether the Mayans giving Doc jade wouldn’t make more sense than gold and an article about what Pat Savage really thought about her cousin (it includes the interesting reveal that Dent would have had her running a detective firm before his editor pushed for a beauty salon). This stuff is definitely useful for writing Savage Adventures.

There are also a number of essays built around the premise that Doc is a real person whose exploits were fictionalized in Doc Savage. Two interviews with Doc in the style of Philip José Farmer. Doc revealing he deliberately influenced Warner Brothers to make the 1975 movie campy. Discussing the hypothetical backstory of Doc’s mother.

I have no objection to this approach (which Rick Lai’s chronology also uses) though it’s not the path I’m taking. In Savage Adventures I assume Doc is “real” in the world of the series but not our own; reading Dyar makes me realize the two approaches sometimes lead to different places.

Lai’s chronology, for instance, involves a lot of figuring out which real countries Doc was adventuring in during Dust of Death, Golden Peril and other stories. I can simply assume fictional countries such as Hidalgo and Santa Amoza exist in Doc’s secondary reality and not worry about it. Farmer has to explain how Doc can have offices on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building when it’s an observation deck; I can note the discrepancy and move on.

Or consider World’s Fair Goblin. Set at the New York World’s Fair, it came out the same month the fair opened. Obviously if it happened then, Lester Dent wouldn’t have had time to write it up, nor his editors to go over it, then get it on the stands. Farmer declares it’s a fiction Dent wrote to cash in on a big event; Lai suggests it took place before the official opening. I can assume it happened just as Dent wrote it.

That doesn’t mean their approach is wrong. It’s the same one Sherlockians have been using to write about Holmes for years, and it’s equally legitimate for other fictional characters. Reading Dyar just made me aware how the two paths end up in different places.

Covers by James Bama. All rights to images remain with current holders.

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April 18, 2025 · 4:02 pm

This week I was trapped, tangled and in total trouble!

No, wait, that’s the guy on Sal Trapani’s cover. My week wasn’t quite that bad.

When I talked about successfully fighting off a cold last week, I was optimistic. I have kept the usual bronchial infection at arm’s length but stuff like this usually requires a day of rest to shake off and I hadn’t given myself one. Nor have I gotten one since. So I’m still feeling wiped out (a couple of bad nights of sleep didn’t help) and still coughing a little. If it persists into next week I’ll visit the doctor.

Still I did get plenty done. Work on Savage Adventures, some movies watched for Jekyll and Hyde, and two articles for The Local Reporter. One on Carrboro’s plans to protect residents in the current political climate, one on the budget for the coming fiscal year. Over at Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about Green Lantern #76, considered one of the books that launched the Bronze Age.

I’m not a fan of Denny O’Neil’s writing here — I rarely am — but that is one hell of a cool Neil Adams cover!

I also finished the taxes which proved more work than I’d anticipated. On the plus side I found enough savings that we’re entitled to refunds at the state and federal level. I mailed them off Tuesday. I’d like to say “next year I’ll handle them much more efficiently” but like so many Americans I’ve said that too many years to believe it.

This weekend I do hope to turn Sunday into a lazy, layabout day. We’ll see if it happens. In any case, have a great weekend everyone!

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