I have previously posted about the Vic Challenger series, in particular numbers 1, 2, 5, and 6. Set in the 1920s, the series stars young Victoria Custer who discovers she is the reincarnation of a cave girl, Nat-ul, born and died 100,000 years ago.
Using the name “Vic Challenger,” she works as a travel writer (and adventurer) while looking for her soul mate from 100,000 years ago whom she thinks is also reincarnated. But in her travels, she gets into various dangers, and experience in her past life as a cave girl warrior helps her out.
The character actually comes from Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ The Eternal Lover (later renamed The Eternal Savage). As the Burroughs novel is in the public domain, I am sure calling the character “Vic Challenger” makes it easier to copyright this different take on the character.
I finally got the third and fourth novels, so I am reviewing them here. As in all the other novels, Vic and her friends always come up against bad guys and dangerous cryptids.
Number 3 is Never Give Up is another two-part novel. First part is set in the American southwest where Vic and friend Lin get embroiled with problems. Vic had read an article of the discovery of a large cave in the Grand Canyon that had mysterious artifacts. The article is real, whether what its claim is real is another thing. Vic and Lin do find it and some of the mysteries connected to it, including a secret government installation, and deal with slavers taking Navajo children. Once those are resolved they take an ocean cruise to England, and then head to Scotland for their next adventure. Here they camp out at a real castle near Loch Ness. They soon learn of stories of highland cannibals (again, real stories of a clan of these) as well as the Loch Ness “beasties.” You’ll have to see how this all works out.
Sadly for Vic, on her return she learns that her mother has passed away.
Number 4 is Terror Incognita and another two-part novel. The first part of the story is set in Vic and Lin’s hometown in Nebraska, where an old friend has gotten herself into a serious bind, and Vic steps in, literally, to get her out of it. Then Vic and Lin head off to explore the Amazon. What starts off as what should be a fairly simple trip soon becomes more complicated. Vic meets a strange woman who is from a lost tribe in the Amazon who still speaks the prehistoric language of the cavemen, which Vic speaks thanks to her being a reincarnation of one! From the woman, she learns of this lost land that is the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle‘s Lost World, and they hope to mount an expedition to it. Before they do, Vic meets the last tribe of New World apes who also speak the same prehistoric language.
But Vic and Lin engage the assistance of two men to help them, one who bares watching. The pair find the Lost World plateau, and discover it’s under the control of a near-immortal shaman that Nat-Ul had to deal with. This shaman is tied to the story of Atlantis, and has two cryptid species helping him, one a dinosaur species, the other a strange biped race. These he has used to control the cavemen who live on plateau for the last several hundred years and hopes to use to conquer the world! But Vic and Lin helps put an end to him, and barely get out of there with their lives, what with the danger of these two species and one of the men who assisted them to get up river.
I’ve enjoyed this series and recommend it to others, especially if you’re looking for a pulp heroine. A seventh novel is being worked on, but I have no idea when it will appear. The author has also updated all the covers of the works, moving from a cartoonish style to a more photographic style that I think looks more professional. Check out this series, but I recommend starting with the first one, as they do build on each other.
