A pulp author that I had seen Steeger Books reprint recently that I don’t know much about is Fred MacIsaac (1882-1940). Maybe best known for his Rambler Murphy series in Dime Detective, about a wandering reporter who solves crimes, MacIsaac has done a variety of stories in various pulps.
Other than the bio he provided to Argosy, included in this volume, which speaks of his work as a reporter, editor, and critic, as well as a musical production manager and producer, not much is known about him. The article on him in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction focuses on his handful of fantastical works.
The work I got to try out is Balata, reprinting a serialized novel from Argosy (Dec. 27, 1930 through Jan. 31, 1931). It was cover featured for the first installment, and the cover was reprinted as the cover of this collection. I was hoping for a “lost-world/lost-race” kind of story, but instead got a jungle-adventure story with an interesting group of characters.
The title, “Balata,” refers to a central element of the story, the search for a large grove of balata trees. It’s a hardwood tree that grows in northern South America and produces latex. As the rubber industry has collapsed in South America due to competition from Southeast Asia, various people are hard on the look for groves of the tree. Interestingly, as it is a hardwood, the tree is also harvested for its wood, but this was never mentioned in the story. Here, our main characters are looking for the grove, which is in Colombia, but they must cross over from Brazil as it would be easier to ship it out that way on the Amazon River.
We meet most of our main characters in the first few chapters. There is Peter Holcomb, who while a crack shot is a bit of a wimp. His best friend and fellow college graduate, Lester Gorman, has hired him as a secretary when he returned to New York after making his fortune in Nevada. Joining them is Lester’s younger sister, Louise. As Lester feels Peter is unworthy of her, he has forbidden him from courting his sister. There is Felix Dexter, an explorer who discovered the grove and has been looking for investors in the endeavor and has found Gorman. Together, the four will be challenging the wilds of the Amazon, although they would prefer that Louise stay behind.
Also involved is Rosa de Sousa, a beautiful Brazilian girl Les has fallen in love with. Sadly, her father, Dom Juan de Sousa, despite falling on hard times, refuses to allow his daughter to marry Les, in part because he’s American, but also because he has promised her to another. And there is Dom Carlos Aguedarno, a local rubber baron. It is clear when we meet him he is the villain of the story. He has been using all the means at his disposal to learn where the balata grove is and will stop at nothing to obtain it. Sadly, Dom de Sousa is indebted to him, and he has been promised Rosa’s hand in marriage.
There will be danger and intrigue for our group of friends in their quest for the balata trees. Murder and death will dog their journey, both from the natives, as well as agents of Aguedarno, and not all will survive. Will the experience make a man out of Peter Holcomb? Will he get Louise, or will Felix? And will Les be able to wed Rosa?
If you enjoyed this story, check out some of the other works already available from Steeger Books. They have reprinted about half of the Rambler series in two volumes. There are also four other novels by him in their Argosy Library series.
From what I know, there are a few fantastical works he’s done that I hope will be reprinted. He did do at least one lost-world/lost-race story in “The Last Atlantide” from The Popular Magazine. “The Vanishing Professor” from Argosy is about an inventor who created an invisibly machine and must contend with criminals. “The Hothouse World, also from Argosy, is a post-apocalyptic story where a man is brought back from suspended animation to find everyone confined within a single, domed city. And there are a few others.
So we should see some more interesting works from him.
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