In a
way, this could have served as a perfect ending for this series.
Luckily, it's not – there are at least two more tales, one of which
has been published, another said to be in the works. But in this
story, the major unresolved issue hanging over Doc Savage from his
reawakening in Bronze Refined as Silver
finds resolution.
Shortly
after Doc mysteriously disappeared in 1949, the activities of his
“Crime College” were exposed – and were framed as gross
violations of the civil rights of the criminals whom Doc had
surgically rehabilitated … against their wills. Press exposés
and congressional hearings destroyed his team and sullied his legacy,
branding him a criminal comparable to the likes of Josef Mengele.
Now, most of a decade after beginning his new life as “Clark Dent,”
the birth of his children – triplets – inspires Doc to do a great
deal of soul-searching, and on their first birthday he announces his
intention to come clean, face the public, and the law. Not at all
coincidentally, this happens just as the very criminal who had
trapped Doc in suspended animation – and survived to the present by
the same means – determines to finish the job of destroying Doc's
reputation with the aim of driving him to utter despair and suicide.
He doesn't count on either Doc's new circle of agents and friends,
and the fact that Doc has found new peace and strength through Jesus
Christ.
It's
nice reading Eidemiller's Doc
Savage
again – as much as I liked #7 Bronze-Tempered Steel on its own merits, it just wasn't the same. I think it may be that
Barry Ottey tried just a bit too hard to duplicate Eidemiller's
style, and it came off feeling somewhat forced. There's just a
natural flow in this and Eidemiller's own stories that is missing
from Steel.
In any case, that just-previous tale is definitively incorporated as
part of the saga when we find Kal and Lois still in Doc's world, having remained long enough to help establish the journalism department at
Clark Savage Institute and witness the birth of Doc's and Bonnie's
children before returning to their own universe. Of course, their existence as more than fictional characters, unknown to the wider world,
gives Monk the perfect opportunity to get in a slyly ironic put-down
on the overly aggressive DA questioning him regarding Doc's
activities in the Crime College. I guffawed right along with him at
her discomfiture!
Eidemiller
continues to widen the world of The
Bronze Saga
to encompass other figures from popular culture as well as our
reality – including a very familiar head of the New York City Crime
Lab, the ancestor of one of Dr. McCoy's 23rd-century associates in
the Sickbay of the Enterprise,
and the First Family of the United States. The elder Bush in fact
knows Doc from way back. I could well have missed some such
crossovers – but I don't consider the familiar name of the New York
City Police Commissioner to be quite the same thing even though New
York is sometimes called “Gotham” ….
All
in all, this was another enjoyable read. I'm already a bit
disappointed that at this point I have only one more installment in
“The Christian Adventures of Doc Savage” left to read. I hope
the tenth, listed as “Bronze
Shaped as Clay”
on the story download page linked at the top of this post, isn't too
long in coming. And in the meantime, once I've read #9 Bronze
Golem,
there is Eidemiller's first professionally published book, As Iron Sharpens Iron, which has
been sitting in my Kindle library for months now.
Cheers, and thanks
for reading!
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