Lester Dent is well known for being the creator and main writer of Doc Savage. But many pulp fans also know that before and during the time he wrote Doc, he also did various “gadget heroes.” While you can read many of these original stories, until now there were not any new stories with these characters.
Now thanks to Pro Se Press’s Pulp Obscura line, that all changes. The Lester Dent Estate has allowed them to publish a collection of new stories with one of Dent’s gadget heroes: Foster Fade, the Crime Spectacularist.
Foster Fade was the third of Dent’s gadget heroes, published in early 1934 in Dell’s All Detective Magazine, and collected in Altus Press‘s “Hell in Boxes” collection. I did a review of this character in a prior posting.
For those that missed that review, a quick overview. While Fade is a gadget hero, his shtick is different. While he is a private detective, he works for a newspaper called The Globe, which is a big-selling “yellow journalism” paper. His beat is to find spectacular crimes and solve them, having them written up by his assistant Dinamenta “Din” Stevens, a platinum blonde writer for the paper. His gadgets (we are told the paper has two mechanics on salary creating them for him) are setup in his office and are items he carries and uses. If these are written up in the articles on him (as hinted) wouldn’t that give away a lot of their value?
The original Fade stories are pretty much standard detective stories. What makes them interesting are the gadgets he uses and the deadly schemes used in the stories (not fully explained until the end). I felt this was a problem with the stories. The mysteries are not very mysterious once we find out what’s going on: gun running to Latin American rebels, treasure from Chinese warlords, sunken treasure of smuggled diamonds. What makes the stories are the strange means of death: the Aroma Assassin, white-hot corpses, and dead men with mysterious cuts on them.
As always when I approach a collection like this, I consider how true to the character did the writers stay. If the stories are an improvement, I can accept that, and think that’s a good thing. But if they are out of character, that’s an issue.
This first collection, “The New Adventures of Fade Foster,” has six stories by five authors.
Adam Lance Garcia gives us a story of a serial killer who is bumping off criminals, then taunting Fade by mailing him the murder weapons. Can Fade figure out who is doing it before more are killed?
Derrick Ferguson gives us a tale of the Cider King who appears to have died naturally, though Fade shows it’s murder. The case becomes more complicated when Fade finds out the Cider King was a former government assassin! Was he killed in revenge? Can Fade figure it out?
This story got the name of the paper’s owner correct, but added some features that I don’t recall in the original, like Fade having his own private laboratory and an apartment off of his office.
H. David Blalock has Fade deal with Voodoo magic in a story that does a lot of name dropping. Will he succeed in stopping the next Voodoo victim? Will readers get all the allusions?
David White pits Fade against an opponent who is probably worth his while. He’s figured out how to control vermin. Can Fade stop him?
Aubrey Stephens has a story of revenge that makes no sense. Someone has it in for Fade and is setting up bombs. But why? Can Fade figure out what is going on and who is against him before more die?
Garcia has a second story, which has Fade go after a killer who had killed a friend of his. The story was left a bit unresolved. Hopefully we’ll see a conclusion. In layout this one was the most different from the originals.
Check out these attempts at new stories with Dent’s minor gadget hero and see if they’ve done a good job. I enjoyed them. Will we see new Lynn Lash or Lee Nace stories next, or more Foster Fade?
