Also…
The Doc Sidhe (pronounced “she,” as in banshee) books by Aaron Allston are both a tribute to and a gentle satire of Lester Dent’s Doc Savage novels. Allston’s Doc lives on an alternate Earth, a world ruled by magic, weird science and a healthy dose of Celtic mythology.
Where Doc Savage was a technological wizard, Doc Sidhe is a real wizard. Working out of the tallest skyscraper in the metropolis of Neckerdam, Doc Sidhe and his associates travel their Art Deco world (and to our Earth) battling super villains and gangsters in a quest for truth, justice and the fair world way.
In Doc Sidhe (Baen Books, 1995), Harris, a has-been martial artist, and Gaby, his girlfriend, are caught in a two-world plot of conquest and revenge dreamed up by Duncan Blackletter, Doc’s arch-enemy.
In the second novel, Sidhe Devil (Baen Books, 2001), Doc and company — aided by a shadowy avenger — battle a lethal genius who is raining fiery destruction on Neckerdam. And this super weapon is somehow connected to a plan to build a master race in what would be central Europe on our world.
Both of the novels are still in print, and Doc Sidhe is available as a free e-text at the Baen Books Web site.
In an e-mail, Allston told me that he hopes to write future Doc Sidhe novels. I asked him whether he could persuade Baen Books head honcho Jim Baen to make Doc Sidhe a monthly series (Okay, I’d settle for bimonthly).
His reply: “I expect I can, if you can talk thirty or forty thousand of your closest friends into buying each one as it comes out.”
You can find out more about Allston, Doc Sidhe and Allston’s other novels at this archive of his Web site.
Update: Aaron Allston died unexpectedly from an apparent heart attack on Feb. 27, 2014. He was 53.
