Will Murray discovered Doc Savage in 1969 when he picked up the Bantam Books edition of DUST OF DEATH. Within a few short years, he began contributing to Doc Savage fanzines, starting with THE DOC SAVAGE READER. Soon thereafter, he began placing articles in other fanzines, including ECHOES, THE PULP COLLECTOR, and PULP VAULT, writing about Doc and other pulp characters and the magazines in which they appeared. Today, nearly fifty years later, Will is one of the most respected authorities on the pulp magazine, having authored countless articles and books, including THE DUENDE HISTORY OF THE SHADOW MAGAZINE and WORDSLINGERS: AN EPITAPH FOR THE WESTERN.
In addition to his many non-fiction works on the pulps, Murray was the ghost-writer for about forty of the Destroyer action-adventures novels. He has also written twenty Doc Savage novels and two Tarzan novels. He also serves as the literary agent for the Lester Dent estate and as the co-editor of Sanctum Books’ highly regarded pulp reprints.
In 2016, Murray decided to give many fans what they wanted and penned a solo Pat Savage novel — SIX SCARLET SCORPIONS. Well, almost solo, as Monk Mayfair joins Pat on her adventure:
“When a man so anemic that he could be a vampire’s victim comes to Patricia Savage for rescue, the impetuous girl can’t say no. Excitement is her meat and danger her dessert.
“Accompanied by Doc Savage aide, Monk Mayfair, Pat finds herself in the worst danger of her life. Wanted for murder, hounded by the minions of a weird mystery figure calling himself Chief Standing Scorpion, narrowly evading the hordes of the Vinegarroon tribe, the bronze-skinned golden girl battles her way to a sinister secret cached in an ancient ruin.
“From the oilfields of Oklahoma to the forbidding Ozark Mountains, the trail of scorpionic doom winds. Will Pat Savage’s first great adventure also be her last?”
Of course, for longtime fans of the Man of Bronze, SIX SCARLET SCORPIONS is actually the second Pat Savage novel. In “I Died Yesterday,” her final pulp appearance — published in the January/February 1948 issue of DOC SAVAGE SCIENCE DETECTIVE — she is the first-person narrator of the story. As he does in Murray’s recent novel, Monk teams up with Pat to work on the case.
Members of the Narada Radio Company and their PULP-POURRI THEATRE will perform a reading from Will Murray’s SIX SCARLET SCORPIONS, the first book in THE ALL-NEW WILD ADVENTURES OF PAT SAVAGE series, published by Adventures in Bronze in association with Altus Press. Based in Corpus Christi, PULP-POURRI THEATRE is an audio drama anthology series that has its origins in vintage pulp fiction, but presents its stories in the modern way. Pete Lutz is the company’s producer-director. You can sample their work online or via iTunes.
“The Wild Adventures of Pat Savage by Will Murray,” a reading by PULP-POURRI THEATRE, will take place on Saturday, July 29, at 8:50 PM in the PulpFest 2017 programming area at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry — just north of Pennsylvania’s “Steel City.” You can join PulpFest by clicking the Register for 2017 button on our home page. And don’t forget to book a room at the DoubleTree. They’re going fast!
(Walter Swenson painted eleven DOC SAVAGE covers from January 1947 through September 1948. The January/February 1948 number is a good example of his cover art. His interior illustrations can be found in some issues of John W. Campbell’s ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION. They were also published by Street & Smith, right around the same time as his Doc Savage covers. Little more is known about the artist.)
