Danny's Big Day at the Library

So I went to the library to check out some books.

"Excuse me", I asked. Do you have Craig Ferguson's new memoir, "American on Purpose"?

Ms. Moanz - former playmate and current head librarian - looked up, her smoldering eyes meeting mine and then moving lazily down my body: shoulders... chest... stomach....

Her examination apparently blocked by the waist-height checkout counter, she leaned out and across, firm breasts thrust into prominence by her form fitting v-neck sweater, to continue. Liking what she saw, her lips pursed into an "O" of sensual satisfaction and a tiny gasp escaped her throat, drawing looks from other patrons and one of the other staff.

"Thank heavens I wore the extra large codpiece today", I said to myself.

Suddenly, an explosion rocked the room's audio-visual section! I whirled, searching for it's cause, as six men wearing ski masks rushed through the browsing area, automatic weapons in hand. One separated from the others and, arm cocked, prepared to lob a second grenade, this one into the nearly filled-to-capacity children's story hour area.

"Not on my watch, friend!" I muttered.

Ducking behind 'Fiction: Ha-Ho', I unholstered the government-issue Walther P99 from my left shoulder and drew a bead on the man's forehead.

Calmly, I squeezed the trigger.

I told coworker Rebecca I was writing about my recent trip to the library - she thought it might be a dull subject and suggested I spice it up with a bit of sex and violence.

So I spiced.

What ACTUALLY happened, is while I was looking over my Amazon.com Shopping List, woe-is-me-ing about not having any extra cash to throw its way, I REMEMBERED about the library. Libraries are so cool. And so free. I don't know why that never seems to stay in my brain for very long.

I decided to see if any of my shopping list was available in the Salt Lake County library system. I found five books. A minute later they were all on hold and a day after that 4 of the 5 were ready to be picked up. Which they were, by me.

Now, with multiple books, the question always becomes (for me) which to read first, second and so on. I had my choice of giant killer crabs, giant killer sharks, Swedish vampire love and... Craig Ferguson's novel about a bunch of crazy degenerates.

It's a cinch that pretty much any monster wins out over Craig Ferguson (sorry Craig, but you're only a regular human). The vampire story promises to be good, but I'm not a huge vampire fan, overall. And while I pretty much love ALL giant killer things, sharks have been a fascination for me since I was a wee boy. And crabs... eh. They pinch. You avoid them on the beach. And so on.

Sharks took first place.

Meg: Hell's Aquarium
Now, this is not "just" a killer shark novel. No, this is the fourth installment in a killer shark novel SERIES. (Come to poppa! And yes, I've already read the other three.) None of the series is what you'd call "fine literature", but are all written by a talented guy who *obviously* loves giant killer things as much as I do.

I mean, how d'you go wrong with an 80 foot prehistoric momma shark, five 20-50 foot prehistoric baby sharks, all crammed into a Sea World type aquarium that's open to the public? Just how many things might potentially go awry in this situation?

So many things. So many. A thoroughly enjoyable book. Very gratifying.

Clickers
While crabs aren't as exciting as sharks, the ones herein WERE both giants and killers. That counts for something, so their book came next. It was a quick read. And it sucked. Started out well enough (though the writing was REALLY ham-fisted), with several isolated boat and beach goers getting sliced and diced by prehistoric crabs. Scream. Run. Stumble. Crunch.

But then the crab rampage inexplicably got eclipsed by the arrival of a bunch of creature-from-the-black-lagoon-ish things (carrying tridents, no less), who proceeded to run about stabbing and eating folks and blahdehdah blahdehdah blah. Tridents? I appreciated that the book's authors were (again, obviously) fellow lovers of giant killer things, but... I pretty much forced myself through the last hundred pages.

(I couldn't just STOP reading since you never know when things might start to improve.)

Let the Right One In
Badly in need of having my monster faith restored, this was my third read. This novel was... amazing.

A. MAZ. ING.

Bully-beleaguered boy meets up with creepily endearing vampire girl. Set in 1980s Stockholm, it tells of budding romance between lonely kid Oskar and just-as-lonely vampire Eli. First, they start a nerdy little friendship which then turns into a nerdy little romance. A chaste one, since they're only 13 and 12, respectively.

And don't let the word 'romance' throw you, there's plenty of vampire death and dismemberment in here too. (Plenty.) But its the writing in this thing that is so brilliant. The author magically breathes life into his characters, and by mid-story they feel like old friends (or enemies) that you know you're gonna miss (or breathe a sigh of relief) when they're gone. I'm guessing this guy could write about a kitchen broom in a corner and make it work.

Fantastic.

Between the Bridge and the River
So now, with nothing left to tempt me away, I'm in the middle of Ferguson's novel. Which is good. Monster free, but good. Sharp witted, sarcastic commentary. Interesting if somewhat creepy characters. It basically follows a couple of childhood pals through all the muckety muck of their lives while they attempt to "find" themselves.

I'm more looking forward to the fifth book I put on hold - Ferguson's new memoir - "American on Purpose". Yes, that really WAS one of the books I went to the library for. (And if THAT part of the story is true.... What else might be...?)

I gotta go clean my codpiece gun.

Geek Monthly, where have you been all my life?

I never would have believed it (IF I HADN'T SEEN IT WITH MY OWN EYES).

I had dropped by the bookstore on my lunch break.

Making the usual rounds at the magazine racks amongst the technology, film, art, photography, and writing sections, I stumbled across something new (to me).

It's cover - with the word GEEK splashed across it - intrigued me, so I added it to my usual pile of magazines-to-leaf-through-and-then-leave-on-the-table-not-EVEN-putting-them-back-where-they-belong and moved on.

Some time later, at above mentioned table, I reached above mentioned magazine near the bottom of the pile - an unassuming little periodical called Geek Monthly.

I began to thumb through it: Ah, here's a little Q&A article on computer hardware and a What's New in Tech Gadgets. Nice.

A bit further on: Reviews on odd and out of the way films. An article with a bunch of Best ThisOrThat of 2008s - think sci fi and horror films, novels and such. Wow. I was starting to sweat a little.

Further into the magazine: A satirical photo article using Superman and She-Hulk action figures to illustrate and, across the page - ads for buying Godzilla and Superhero toys?! Seriously?? I must have inadvertently whined, deep in my throat, because a couple of people looked over at me and then left.

Now, if only it had something on my much loved Asian "stuff": WHAT? Regular offerings for anime, manga and Japanese culture??? Not POSSIBLE! But there it was, right in front of me. My eyes rolled back as I headed into a full blown geek seizure (a... geezure... if you will).

On it went, interviews with geeky actors, authors, movie makers. Classic cult TV shows, PC games, recent tech announcements from medical and business, toys and comics.... Nearly every hobby, obsession and character defect I have, hidden under just one cover.

So I bought it. Then I ran right back to the office, brought up the website, and subscribed to it. And now I'm at home... reading it.

doc savage magazine

5 = tip-top
4 = an enjoyable romp
3 = fair to middling
2 = not so much
1 = lame-o

There was death afoot in the darkness.

It crept furtively along a steel girder. Hundreds of feet below yawned glass-and-brick-walled cracks--New York streets. Down there, late workers scurried home-ward. Most of them carried umbrellas, and did not glance upward.

Even had they looked, they probably would have noticed nothing. The night was black as a cave bat. Rain threshed down monotonously. The clammy sky was like an oppressive shroud wrapped around the tops of the tall buildings.

One skyscraper was under construction. It had been completed to the eightieth floor. Some offices were in use.

Above the eightieth floor, an ornamental observation tower jutted up a full hundred and fifty feet more. The metal work of this was in place, but no masonry had been laid. Girders lifted a gigantic steel skeleton. The naked beams were a sinister forest.

It was in this forest that Death prowled.

Death was a man.

Those were the opening words of the very first issue of "Doc Savage Magazine".

Sure, the writing is less than scholarly; but doesn't it just GRAB you? Well, it did me. It was published in March of 1933, and introduced a set of characters that continued for 181 issues over the next sixteen years -- till July of 1949.

Here's the basic premise:

"Doc Savage, whose real name is Clark Savage, Jr., is a physician, surgeon, scientist, adventurer, inventor, explorer, researcher, and musician — a renaissance man. A team of scientists assembled by his father trained his mind and body to near-superhuman abilities almost from birth, giving him great strength and endurance, a photographic memory, mastery of the martial arts, and vast knowledge of the sciences. Doc is also a master of disguise and an excellent imitator of voices, though he admits to having trouble with women's voices. "He rights wrongs and punishes evildoers." Dent described the hero as a mix of Sherlock Holmes' deductive abilities, Tarzan's outstanding physical abilities, Craig Kennedy's scientific education, and Abraham Lincoln's goodness. Dent described Doc Savage as manifesting "Christliness."
- From an essay by Micah Wright.

I think I read my first Doc Savage story around age twelve, maybe a little earlier. The stories were being republished by Bantam Books at the time (between 1964 and 1990) and I'm sure it was the cover art that caught my eye. How could an undersized nerdy kid like myself resist such a heroic looking book cover? (Answer: I couldn't.)

Anyway. All together, Doc Savage has been brought to life through the original pulp magazines, the Bantam reprints, via comic book, radio, and even a (really bad) movie.

On my end, I've managed to collect maybe 30 or so of the Bantam books and even a couple of the original pulp magazines. A few years back, the whole series was available for free in e-book format, so I've read nearly all of the stories due to that.

And - get this - it even turns out that Doc Savage was (loosely) based on a real person:


While visiting John L Nanovic, the editor of the Doc Savage magazine, writer-researcher Will Murray learned that Doc Savage may have been, in part, based on a real-life person named Richard Henry Savage (1846–1903). Like his fictional namesake, Savage was a true renaissance man—soldier, engineer, diplomat, lawyer, novelist, civic leader, and war hero.

Richard Henry Savage was born on June 12, 1846, in Utica, New York, the son of Richard Savage and Jane Moorhead Savage (née Ewart). His ancestors were English, Scottish and Irish, and his grandfather, a civil engineer, arrived in America around 1805.

Savage graduated from West Point in 1868 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He joined the Egyptian army as a major in 1871. He subsequently served as U.S. vice consul in Marseilles and Rome. On January 2, 1873, he married Anna Josephine Scheible of Berlin, Germany.

Later, Savage served on the Texas-Mexico frontier and as a chief engineer on a railroad in California, retiring in 1884. Following his retirement in 1884, Savage traveled extensively, visiting Turkey, Japan, China, Russia, Asia Minor, Korea, and Honduras.

Returning to the United States in 1891, and a confidant of President Ulysses S. Grant, Savage was given several diplomatic appointments around the world. Savage could talk of all the wild spots in the world that he had visited and had many personal mementos of his strange life.

Savage wrote his first novel, My Official Wife (1891), which proved to be his most famous. Savage wrote over 40 books, including Our Mysterious Passenger and Other Stories (1899), which was published by Street and Smith a year after a 17-year-old Henry W. Ralston, the future co-creator of Doc Savage, joined the firm.

Savage became senior Captain of the 27th U.S. Volunteer Infantry and was appointed Brigadier General and Chief Engineer of Spanish War Veterans in 1900.

After living such an adventurous life, Savage was run over by a horse-drawn wagon while crossing Sixth Avenue in New York City, on October 3, 1903, dying eight days later at the age of 57.
- Wikipedia

Weird, huh?

So. Yeah.

I really like Doc Savage.

I could list out all the cultural and literary merits of the series, and have a discussion on how the Doc Savage character affected the blue collar population during the Great Depression - and while those things are cool, they're not really the main reason I like Doc Savage so much.

Really, I just want to be him....