F/SF

Considering there's actually a mention of the Golden Gate Bridge still being under construction, this book is very much a product of its time...and yeah, it really shows when all of the non-red-blooded-American men are called "Mongols" and "half-castes" and "Japs" and the like, and they don't actually speak, they "singsong" their words. And all the words have the "R" letters replaced by "L"...so instead of "I'm very sorry" or "I'd like that very much" you get "Me vely solly" and "Me likee vely much".

And it's a fairly significant portion of the story, so unlike the casual, but small-portioned racism of a Lovecraft story, this is pretty much in your face throughout.

That being said, I'm guessing this was a helluva lot more standard that any of us would like to see for time.

But if you can get past that (and yes, it's a chore), the story is actually a lot of fun. Doc and the boys take on pirates and Big Bronze has times where, quite frankly, he's kind of stumped, which I quite enjoyed seeing.

But yeah, this'll never go down as the greatest of Doc Savage adventures. ( )

Pirate of the Pacific by Kenneth Robeson (Lester Dent)
Aides: Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom, Johnny
Setting New York, The Malay Queen, Island Nation similar to the Philllipines
Publishing Order 5# Bantam Order 19#
Cover Artist : James Bama

My least favorite of the adventures so far. Reading them in original publishing order allows for seeing a connection in the stories. At the beginning of this tale, Doc and crew are returning to New York in the Hell Diver when the are attacked by a villainous crew trying for a preemptive strike before Doc can get involved with their scheme. Directly linking this story to the previous story The Polar Treasure.
There is a lot of action in New York but nothing to make it stand out. Doc fooling bad guys into killing one of their own, a run around Chinatown etc. Eventually they hook up with Mindoro who is asking for Doc’s help for his island nation in the South Pacific. If I was to guess, I would say that Lester Dent is channeling the Philippines for his nation although at this time they would have been part of the United States.
Not straying too far from the middle act of The Polar Treasure, we find Doc and crew sailing out of San Francisco aboard the Malay Queen. Here we have echoes of what happened on the Hell Diver albeit with a different conclusion. Doc didn’t feel as smart during the voyage which led to the dire situation at the end of this part of the story.
The ending felt like Doc fell into resolving the story. In other tales, Doc may have been thrown curves but you feel like he is in control of the situation. Not here it’s almost pure luck that allows him to finally defeat Tom Too. Even the reveal how Tom Too fit into the earlier part of the story made Doc not look like his usual competent self. . I’m not a Lester Dent scholar but I might speculate that Dent had been pushing his writing schedule to meet deadlines and this story suffered because of that.
My suggestion to potential readers would be don’t judge the other Doc books by Pirate of the Pacific but it is still a quick decent Doc Savage fix. ( )