[net.books] Doc Savage author?

sch@druil.UUCP (Steven C. Higgins) (10/28/85)

		I would like to know the author of the Doc Savage books.
	Can anyone tell me his/her name and possibly some recommendations
	as to which novels are the better ones?

		Thank you,

				Steve Higgins
				druil!sch

ayers@convexs.UUCP (11/12/85)

>The official author is 'Kenneth Robeson' which was a house name. The Doc
>Savage books were written by a number of people, but the primary author was
>Lester Dent (I believe there were four or five others in the 181 book
>series). 

Close enough. The records of the time are sketchy.

>The early ones are definitely better...
>As the series progressed, they ran out of ideas and
>started doing really strange things, and when WWII started they all ran off
>and started fighting Nazi's. The earlier books age a lot better than the
>later ones.


This was due mostly to changes in the editorial staff, not from a lack of 
ideas.  During the WWII era, the editors decided that a "superman" of bronze
was no longer "news", (the "man of steel" being popular by then) and changed 
his personality to be more "human" -- thereby dooming the series.  (People 
had plenty of "human" hero's; they wanted larger than life hero's to fight 
the larger than life enemies we had...)  

Or at least that's the general viewpoint held by the class we had on "Heroes
for Troubled Times" in college (but what do they know...)

blues, II