Friday, July 24, 2015

Forgotten Books:The Duende History of The Shadow Magazine

Will Murray is one of those prolific writers whom I admire greatly.  He wrote many of the novels in The Destoyer series, and now he's writing books that continue the adventures of Doc Savage, Tarzan, and, most recently, The Shadow (in The Sinister Shadow, in which The Shadow meets up with Doc Savage).  He also knows just about everything about every pulp magazine ever published, or so it seems.

Before I read The Sinister Shadow, I decided I'd better brush up on my Shadow lore.  I was a big fan of the character on radio when I was a kid, but the radio Shadow isn't the same as the pulp Shadow.  In fact, the pulp Shadow is a complicated guy in more ways than one.  Luckily I had Murray's book on had to clear things up for me, at least as much as things can be cleared up.  

As you can tell from the ToC below, there's a lot of info in the book, but the ToC just gives you a vague idea.  It's a great book.  Unfortunately, cheap copies do not abound on the Internet.  If you happen to run across one at a reasonable price, grab it.

Contents:
1. The Men Who Cast The Shadow by Will Murray
2. The Duende Shadow Index by Will Murray
3. The Golden Shadow by Bob Sampson and Will Murray
4. The Vulnerable Shadow by Bob Sampson
5. Theodore Tinsley-Maxwell Grant's Shadow (interview by Will Murray)
6. The Third Cranston by Bob Sampson
7. The Purple Girasol by Walter B. Gibson
8. Blackmail Bay by Walter B. Gibson
9. Walter B. Gibson Revisited (interview by Will Murray and Bob Sampson)
10. The Sinister Sanctum by Will Murray
11. The Authors

Features:

Interviews with the authors of the pulp Shadow (see above)
Short story "Blackmail Bay" by Walter B. Gibson

5 comments:

George Kelley said...

This looks terrific! When does Will Murray sleep?

JoeK said...

This book is pretty old. I don't know when it came out, but I picked up my copy from a comic shop in the early 1980s and have used it so much that the cover has come off. It's a great companion piece to The Shadow Scrapbook which came out around the same time. (I could never get copy myself, but was able to read a library copy.)

Evan Lewis said...

This book holds down a place of honor on my bookshelf.

Rick Robinson said...

I'm not sure what you consider "reasonable", but I spotted a copy for $16 and bought it.

Unknown said...

I missed that one. I'd consider it a bargain.