Jim Anthony - Super Detective: The Hunters [Paperback]

"Jim Anthony, Super Detective: The Hunters" is a worthy follow-up to Micah Harris' novel from last year, "The Eldritch New Adventures Of Becky Sharp". (Harris wrote the second half of this novel; it's my first encounter with the writing of Josh Reynolds, who penned the first half.)

Reynolds and Harris each wrote a novelette about Jim Anthony, a half Irish, half Comanche genius and incredibly athletic "super man" who was the star of nearly a dozen books back in the glory days of pulp fiction. Anthony was often described as being very much like the character of Doc Savage, but Jim Anthony also paid more attention to the sexual intrigue that could be generated during his adventures.

Reynolds and Harris continue the resurrection of Jim Anthony from the obscurity of public domain which began with a previous collection of stories from Airship 27. These two stories overlap to create a "Wold Newtonesque", oversized adventure which takes the "super man" (the home-grown variety) from the skyscraper canyons of 1931 Manhattan to the legendary jungles of Skull Island.

I called the novel "Wold Newtonesque" because like that shared universe concept first imagineered by the late Philip Jose Farmer (and tended to now by the dedicated Win Scott Eckert), this tale has characters and locations from other source materials. Chief among these would be Zaroff, the mad Russian huntsman from Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game", and of course "King Kong" and the passengers and crew of the Venture, who crossed paths with the "eighth wonder of the world".

Although I have no problem with the idea of incorporating this novel into the Wold Newton Universe, I'm certainly no authority on the subject; I'm sure there must be good reasons to exclude it. (I can barely keep up with all the details of my own shared universe concept - Toobworld aka Earth Prime-Time!)

But I get the feeling the book doesn't fit into the WNU. The main reason would be the connection between Harris' earlier novel and the family background for one of this book's characters. According to "Crossovers Volume 2" by Win Scott Eckert - a must-have for fans of pulp fiction and shared universes - "The Eldritch New Adventures Of Beck Sharp" didn't pass muster for inclusion on technical, certainly NOT artistic, grounds.

But also, at least from what I've read at the Wold Newton web site, "Jim Anthony" is considered just an alias for Doc Savage. But in this novel, the "Man of Bronze" is referred to as Jim Anthony's contemporary. For my own part, I like the idea that these two "super men" might one day share a taxi....

In the end, none of that really has any bearing on the fact that "Jim Anthony, Super Detective: The Hunters" is a fun, fast-paced read - I was turning the pages almost as quickly as the action occurring on those pages. The writing styles of Josh Reynolds and Micah Harris mesh well together and complement each other so that if one didn't know better, it could be assumed that there was only one author.

Don't be daunted if you don't recognize every character from their original sources; Reynolds and Harris make sure that doesn't get in the way of a good yarn. If you're a fan of the pulp fiction heroes of the 1930's, give this half Irish, half Comanche super detective a try.

(My own personal favorite moment: the in-joke about Co'op-O'bi and the Weta people, both of whom were instrumental in the legend of the "Great Gorilla God". This is one O'Bi who's always glad when "Cousin" Willis gets his due.....)

For those not familiar, Jim Anthony was a sort-of Doc Savage clone published by Trojan/Culture publications, a publisher of the "spicy" pulps of sort-of soft porn. Strangely enough, it was owned by the same guy who owned DC Comics. Quite honestly, as a long-time pulp fan, I only learned of Jim Anthony in recent years.

Jim Anthony was 'half-indian, half-irish, and all American'. More emotional then Doc, he was a physical and mental marvel. He had a penthouse in the "Waldorf-Anthony" hotel he owned, had a secret mansion in the Catskills called "The Tepee", another resort in an oasis in the American Southwest called "The Pueblo". He was assisted by a small group of people include Tom Gentry, pilot and right-hand man; Mephito, his shaman grandfather; his butler, and Dolores, the daughter of a US Senator and his fiance.

His stories ran about 24 stories. For the first 10 or so, he was 'super Jim Anthony', where he fought against science-ficional menaces. After that, he was sort of 'de-powered' and lost most of his aides except for Tom. He was turned into more of a hard-boiled detective. He would soon be written by the authors' of Trojan's Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective. At the begining he was written by Victor Rousseau. Its known he wrote the first 3 and prehaps the others before the others took over.

This volume has 2 linked stories, almost making a single novel.

In these stories, Jim is team up with (and against) Count Zaroff, the villian of the novel/film "The Most Dangerous Game", fighting yetis and later dealing with King Kong.

I do have to note that I had issues with the cover. It shows Jim Anthony as a blond man, but as someone who is 'half irish and half indian', he has dark hair.