{"id":509,"date":"2013-05-28T10:25:45","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T14:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=509"},"modified":"2025-11-05T14:26:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T19:26:38","slug":"review-the-sting-of-the-silver-manticore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2013\/05\/28\/review-the-sting-of-the-silver-manticore\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: ‘The Sting of the Silver Manticore’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheThe Silver Manticore<\/strong> is an interesting New Pulp<\/a> hero.<\/p>\n

“The Sting of the Silver Manticore” is an obvious homage to many fictional characters from pulps, radio, TV\/movies (including serials), and literature. Its author, P.J. Lozito<\/strong>, also mixes in a lot of other characters who are homages of others. It’s almost confusing trying to figure out who is being referenced, especially when you have some characters who are obviously a mix of two to three others.<\/p>\n

The Silver Manticore<\/a> has appeared in two prior stories in Pro Se Presents<\/a><\/em>. One uses the 1930\/’40s Manticore (the main character here) and the other uses the ’60\/’70s Manticore (who appears in the later part of the book).<\/p>\n

At first glance, the Silver Manticore is a mix of the Green Hornet<\/strong> and The Shadow<\/a><\/strong>. As the main story is set in the 1940s, he is obviously based on the radio Green Hornet. He has a background based on The Shadow (with a hint of G-8<\/a><\/strong> as his old spy moniker was G-9<\/strong>) with some hints of The Copperhead<\/strong>, the hero of the Mysterious Doctor Satan<\/em>\u00a0movie serial.<\/p>\n

We soon learn that there have been many Silver Manticores in the past, with previous ones taking on the equivalent roles to the Man in the Iron Mask<\/strong>, Scarlet Pimpernel<\/strong>, Zorro<\/a><\/strong>, and The Lone Ranger<\/a><\/strong>. In later sections of the book, others take up the mantle of the Silver Manticore. The final one is in an equivalent role of the TV Green Hornet (with a new character based on the Bruce Lee<\/strong> version of Kato<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The Silver Manticore’s main foe is Hanoi Tsin<\/strong>, obviously meant to be Fu Manchu<\/strong>. Another associate is Siam Khan<\/strong>, who I think is meant to be a nod to Shiwan Khan<\/strong>, The Shadow’s Fu Manchu-like foe. Other foes are based on Fantomas<\/a><\/strong> and other such villains. The Silver Manticore is aided by others (similar to The Shadow), including analogues to The Spirit<\/strong> and his associates, The Shadow’s Harry Vincent<\/strong>, Operator #5<\/strong>\/Secret Agent X-9<\/strong>, Nick Fury<\/strong>, S.H.I.E.L.D.\/U.N.C.L.E., and Doc Savage<\/a><\/strong> and his associates.<\/p>\n

Overall the book is pretty good. I did feel there was too much dropping of foreign words at times that made it confusing to understand what was being said. There were also issues with proofing. A few times sections were in italics for no apparent reason, I caught a few typos, and in one case a cross-out that should have been removed.<\/p>\n

I do look forward to further Silver Manticore stories. The setup is such that the author could delve into prior characters as well, and there is stuff to take this “character” further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Silver Manticore is an interesting New Pulp hero. “The Sting of the Silver Manticore” is an obvious homage to many fictional characters from pulps, radio, TV\/movies (including serials), and literature. Its author, P.J. Lozito, also mixes in a lot of other characters who are homages of others. It’s almost confusing trying to figure out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":683,"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":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","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":[7,46,14],"tags":[110,3,913,80,109,148],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-pulp","category-pastiche","category-review","tag-doc-savage","tag-hero-pulps","tag-p-j-lozito","tag-pro-se-press","tag-the-shadow","tag-the-silver-manticore"],"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\/2013\/05\/silver-manticore.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-8d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","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=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21816,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions\/21816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}