THE AWFUL DYNASTY (Doc Savage)
From November 1940, this was a real struggle to finish reading and frankly, not worth the fight. About the second chapter, I wondered, "What on Earth happened to Lester Dent? Did he write this while in the hospital with double pneumonia or something?" Then I realized that this was one of the stories ghosted by William G. Bogart. A couple of the later Doc books by Bogart were okay in a hardboiled way, but not this one. THE AWFUL DYNASTY is flat and uncompelling; there's nothing in the writing to draw you in and keep those pages turning.
First, let's get the title out of the way. There is no 'awful dynasty' involved in the story, despite a brief mention that archaeologists involved with the matter at hand had died mysteriously. The focus of the story is the hunt for an unplundered tomb of a Pharaoh who is not even named,just described as being part of the Fourth Dynasty of Cheops (?). (You know, wouldn't it have been a neat touch if the tomb had been referred to as that of a relative of good old Peh-deh-eh-ghan from
RESURRECTION DAY? A little touch like that would have redeemed this story a bit.)
Chasing after the papyrus giving the location of the tomb is a rather large gang of gunmen led by John Black. As bizarre looking masterminds go, Black is okay; he's a genuine albino with pink eyes, a pudgy form and a sanctimonious manner. As usual, there is a second group in on the game, fouling things up and keeping both Black's gang and Doc's crew running in circles. Also as is the tradition, the leader of the second band of crooks is a character introduced early on, but frankly by the
time he makes his dramatic appearance at a crucial moment, I had forgotten all about him and had to go stop to reflect. Oh, yeah, THAT guy...!
Throughout the story, hapless folks who get involved tend to die abruptly with the glowing mark of a blue scarab on their heads (hey, a blue beetle? Do you think... nah, it couldn't be.) which suddenly disappears. The explanation for this is less plausible than usual, and the whole rigamarole seems sort of pointless anyway. The idea that some dread curse is at work could be creepy is handled well, but it just doesn't seem convincing. The way people panic at seeing a bloated bug is
actually embarrassing (ahh! A moth! Get it out of here!)
All five aides are along for the ride, though they end up having little to contribute other than being captured (twice) so that Doc can rescue them. Pat Savage pops in, hopefully to stir things up, but she is firmly escorted home by Johnny and (to my surprise) she doesn't show up again. When has Pat ever meekly gone offstage like that? Seriously, wouldn't you longtime Doc fans expect
to see her come busting back in again a few pages later? I also thought it was way out of character for Long Tom to be harboring tender thoughts about her ("Gosh, Pat, you look more beautiful each time I see you.") The sour electrical expert would more likely to snap at her to get her little rear end back to her salon and stay out of the way.
It's an interesting image to contemplate, but every time the thugs take Doc's men prisoner, they also carefully tie up Habeas and Chemistry. Okay, I suspect hardened killers would not go to the trouble of tying up a pig and an ape, what with all the biting and struggling involved. Can you imagine trying to put a gag in a chimp's mouth? You'd be known as Three Finger Jack, if you survived.
What else went wrong with this story? Well, the usual shooting and running around Manattan takes up the first eighty pages of a one hundred page tale. When we finally do meander over to Egypt, the area and the pyramid itself are so sparsely described as to provide no good visualization for the reader to work with. Once the entire cast scrambles inside the pyramid to resume the shooting and chasing, it quickly becomes a hopelessly confused jumble. Establishing a clear layout for the action to take place is an essential skill for a writer of adventure stories. Like Robert E. Howard, Lester Dent had the ability to set a stage with remarkably few words, so that the reader could picture what was going on. Bogart doesn't show that gift here.
THE AWFUL DYNASTY is readable. It's not like, say, THE MEN WHO SMILED NO MORE or HE COULD STOP THE WORLD, where you have to struggle to make sense out of each paragraph. The story is just sort of blah, with nothing to recommend it. The best line was the mention that the cute little heroine, Princess Amen-Amen was "a direct descendant of King Tutankamen." I'd love to see a copy of her genealogical chart, it must go on for a few pages.