{"id":22641,"date":"2026-06-17T10:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T14:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=22641"},"modified":"2026-04-01T11:00:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:00:30","slug":"a-work-of-human-hands-by-william-preston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2026\/06\/17\/a-work-of-human-hands-by-william-preston\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A Work of Human Hands’ by William Preston"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have posted before on William Preston<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s series of stories featuring his pastiche\/homage to Doc Savage<\/a><\/strong>: The Old Man<\/a><\/strong>. This series is made up of five short stories that appeared in Asimov\u2019s Science Fiction<\/a><\/em> from 2010 to 2024.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>At the time it finished, I was really hoping we would get a book collecting the whole series. And we finally did in February 2026: A Work of Human Hands<\/em> from Quincy House, with a cover by Ron Hill<\/a><\/strong>. There is also an introduction by Preston.<\/p>\n

For those who have not experienced The Old Man<\/a>, now is your chance. The stories are not told in chronological order, but you are advised to read them in publication order.<\/p>\n

As The Old Man has been around for a while, maybe long-lived, maybe immortal, he has had aides come and go. At one time, he had his headquarters in the World Trade Center and had a retreat in the Arctic.<\/p>\n

The first story, \u201cHelping Them Take the Old Man Down\u201d (March 2010), introduces us to the Old Man through one of his aides. The story is mainly set in the post-9\/11 world, but with flashbacks to prior events that the aide has been involved in. The Old Man is known only by this nickname, and his aides all have nicknames and are known by those.<\/p>\n

At some point, he moved his headquarters out of the Empire State Building to the World Trade Center, but had moved out of that building prior to 9\/11. And this is what made the government suspicious. With the assistance of the aide, the government tracks down the Old Man at his base in the Arctic, though not before he is able to destroy it, and takes him into custody. Maybe he engineered the whole thing?<\/p>\n

The next story, \u201cClockworks\u201d (April\/May 2011), is set in the 1960s, and the Old Man is called the Big Man<\/strong>. One of the aides helping him in this story was shown as an older man in the first story. They are also assisted by a former villain who has been \u201creformed\u201d by the Old Man, obviously a nod to Doc\u2019s Crime College.<\/p>\n

The third story, \u201cUnearthed\u201d (September 2012), is set in 1925, early in the career of the Old Man. Here, he is very young and known as the Little Boss<\/strong>. The story is set in South America at a mine owned by his father, referred to as the Big Boss<\/strong>. A problem occurs, and the Little Boss comes down to take care of it. It turns out to be much more mysterious than it appears.<\/p>\n

The fourth story is \u201cEach in His Prison, Thinking of the Key\u201d (April\/May 2014). Set after the events of the first story, we find the Old Man a prisoner of the government. The story focuses on the young man assigned to watch him and how this affects him. And the Old Man makes his escape.<\/p>\n

The fifth and final story was originally titled \u201cThe World Will Be the World Again\u201d and was planned to appear in 2014. Instead, it appeared in 2024 as \u201cTo Make an End\u201d (May\/June 2024). This time, the story is set in 2031, further into the future than the previous one. The world seems deeply troubled, with climate change, various viral pandemics that have killed millions, and a solar flare that has taken a further toll. Now, something has been mysteriously causing people to disappear.<\/p>\n

A pair of siblings is looking for the Old Man, following various clues. They locate him in a strange hibernation chamber, awaken him, and inform him of what is going on. This includes a bizarre messianic cult built around him, with centers around the country and the world. The Old Man finds this unusual, as the fictional stories should not have caused this, and he went to great lengths to ensure his real involvement in the world went unnoticed. Is an old foe behind this? When he sees a list of those who have disappeared, he notices that several have a connection to him, including the siblings\u2019 parents, who briefly worked for him, though not as aides.<\/p>\n

This leads to a confrontation with whoever or whatever is behind it. Will the Old Man triumph, and if so, what will come next?<\/p>\n

As this is a character who has been around for more than a hundred years, there is certainly room for further stories, but that will not happen. Preston planned for a five-story series, and that is what we got.<\/p>\n

While I have all the issues of Asimov\u2019s Science Fiction<\/em>, I am glad to have a volume with the complete set of stories. If you missed it the first time, now is your chance to find out what all the fuss is about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have posted before on William Preston\u2019s series of stories featuring his pastiche\/homage to Doc Savage: The Old Man. This series is made up of five short stories that appeared in Asimov\u2019s Science Fiction from 2010 to 2024. At the time it finished, I was really hoping we would get a book collecting the whole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":{"highlight_sharing":"default","image_sharing":"default","headline_sharing":"default"},"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at 'A Work of Human Hands,' the collection of Old Man stories by William Preston.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[7,46,135,14],"tags":[1970,110,1145,775,1730],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-22641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-pulp","category-pastiche","category-reprints","category-review","tag-asimovs-science-fiction","tag-doc-savage","tag-ron-hill","tag-the-old-man","tag-william-preston"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2026\/03\/work-of-human-hands-featured.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-5Tb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22641"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22724,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22641\/revisions\/22724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22641"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=22641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}