Forrest Dylan Bryant

“Oh, that’s rich, Mister Writer Man. Yeah, we’ll just beat the tar out of ‘em. Two skinny guys and a couple of dames up against the Shadow army and those walking cadavers who hired ‘em.” — Rosie to Sid


If you enjoy 1930s pulp, even a tiny bit, this is great fun! It’s been out since 2009 in paperback, and 2011 on Kindle, according to the listing. It can only be attributed to the sort of anti-author stance of some that this book hasn’t gotten any buzz here, because it most certainly deserves it. This is a fabulous read for fans of Lester Dent, Norvell Page and, as Lewis’s Hathaway might say, “The rest of the boys in the band”. A lot of thought, planning and imagination went into this love letter to the grand adventure pulp stories of Dent, who penned those great Doc Savage stories of yore. But more importantly, this author has the talent to pull it off, making Dragon in the Snow a fun, breezy blast on its own merits, while at the same time paying homage to those early pulp legends.

The whiz-bang story begins with an atmospheric bang in 1936 when an eerie, green-glowing plane approaches the Golden Star, a ship which will soon be adrift at sea. Sidney “Sid” Friedman smells a story in the Golden Star’s fate that might work for the pulp tales he writes for Weird Excitement. He’s musing with his hulk of a friend, New York Detective Sergeant Hank Martin about that, and the two men missing in the Himalayan mountains making news at the bar. Hank is imagining that Baroness Angelica, the lovely daughter of one of the missing men, might enlist their help. She’s a girl who was in the Valley of Tombs with her adventurous father at an age when other girls were playing with dolls. Of course the chances of that really happening are nil — until it does!

This is pulp as it used to be, with great movement, lightning pacing, humor and improbable circumstances meeting the implausible in such a gloriously entertaining way that the reader simply doesn’t care. Since this one takes on a weird menace vibe from the onset we just go with the flow, and it’s a wonderful ride. Sid’s girlfriend Rosie Esterhasey, the Baroness Angelica who drives a blue Delahayne, cop Hank Martin, Professor Armbruster and Captain Dove, and Angelica’s loyal chauffeur Sonny are along for the ride. They are fleshed out just enough to give us a mental image, and a sense of them. That’s all you need for pulp, and this is a delightfully fun ride. An explosion, a metal globe with an odor containing scrolls and markings, a green cylinder, glowing stones, kidnappings and daring rescues from San Francisco to Shanghai, and finally a meeting with evil at that most mystical of places, Shangri-La, all come into play as Sid and his pals deal with ancient Shadow Orders, the Chenggi (the People of Heaven), and the evil Black Dragon, who’s after what they have, so that he can rule the world.

Whenever they’re in a bind, Sid always asks, “What would Doc Savage do?” and though there is some appropriate eye-rolling by some in their group, it usually comes down to doing what Savage would do that saves the day. The fact that it doesn’t come off as silly, but rather charming fun, is because this is written with such affection for the genre, and because the pacing is so swift. The reader, as he/she should be in a story like this, is simply swept along on a grand pulp adventure, early 1930s style. The narrative is exciting, there is humor sprinkled throughout, the characters are well-defined — within their pulp limitations — and the writing is crisp and enjoyable. From dragon planes to the snow-covered Himalayan mountains, from exotic temples to Sid’s romance with his girl, Rosie, it’s all charming and fun and sweet. There’s even a nice illustration at the end of the story.

On a technical note, typos were extremely minimal, well within normal for a story of this length. A very clean read overall, with only a minor glitch to note: though text was justified, there would quite regularly be one sentence within a paragraph which came just short of the right-hand margin, as though that one sentence within said paragraph hadn’t been justified. It didn’t affect the reading in any way, and may have been a Kindle download glitch, not sure.

Overall, I’ve nothing but great things to say about Dragon in the Snow, and had a blast reading it. Hopefully we’ll get another at some point. For anyone who enjoys extremely well written 1930s pulp, and has an affection for Doc Savage, or the runaway train pacing of Norvell Page, I highly recommend this book, which deserves some buzz after all this time. It might, in fact, be time for a reset on this one. Fun stuff!… (més)