"The Shadow In Review" is a big book loaded with 519 pages! The cover says it all - "The Ultimate Guide to the Pulp Magazine Series." The cover has the classic The Shadow title, a stack of Shadow pulp magazines and a mysterious Shadow silhouette!
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| Front Cover |
Inside the pages you will find a complete review of each of The Shadow's pulp magazine stories along with the published title, proposed title, date submitted by the author, publish date and author. There are additional reviews of The Shadow stories written by Walter Gibson and published in the 1960s and after. You get a total of 336 Shadow stories reviewed!
Not only do you get a review of the story, Mr. Olsen also weaves in extra information about the story or characters. One thing I love is his rating of each story. Each story is rated on a scale of 0 to 5 as indicated by The Shadow's .45 automatics! Stories with 0 automatics are 'terrible' and the ones with a 5 automatics rating are a 'must read'!
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The appendices in the back of the book are invaluable. Mr. Olsen provides a list of Shadow stories by subject, by story and by the aforementioned rating system. He also provides information on The Shadow movie serial and the 1994 Shadow movie. I've used the appendices quite often in my research and reading about The Shadow. Here's an example of how I've used them. Let's say I want to read about the character Steve Cronin. Using the Index by Subject I can see a list of every Shadow story he was in and how many times he was referenced! Want to know how many times the Cobalt Club is mentioned - it's there as well! Not only are people and places indexed, you will also find lists of The Shadow's weapons, gadgets, and vehicles!
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| Back Cover |
That's a brief look at The Shadow in Review! (If you want more information on ordering a copy, please click here.) As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, I highly recommend this resource to every Shadow fan and agent. It's a tremendous resource that I refer to quite often and am very glad to have in my library.
Thanks for the glowing review of John's compendium. You finally inspired me to order my own copy.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind comments about my book. It all started with my first review for "The Voodoo Master" written way back in 1996. Well, the first version was written in 1996, and then it was updated and expanded years later. Twenty years later, the reviews were all collected in this book. A lot of work, yes... but a lot of fun, too.
ReplyDeleteSo, if you haven't read a good Shadow book lately (there are 325 of them!) pick one out and start reading. You'll love it!