The first hero I wanted to grow up to be was Tarzan. Ron Ely played the ape-man back in the 1960s series, and I watched every week. I also wanted to be Jonny Quest, but I didn't have to grow up to be him. But I had to grow up to be Tarzan. For years after the television show, I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs’s original books, read those, and daydreamed about jungle adventures.
Then, in sixth grade, I discovered the Bantam reprint editions of Doc Savage and found a new hero to go adventuring with. Most of those Doc Savage adventures were set in the 1930s in New York and all around the globe. All I knew at the time was southern Oklahoma. With so many books out, I ended up looking for several missing volumes the rest of my teenage years. And I kept reading them as new reprints came out.
Unfortunately, I outgrew Doc Savage to a degree once I started college. I understood that those books had been pulps many years ago, and that wasn’t the kind of writing that was being accepted at the time. I was interested in becoming a writer, which I have. Plus, I wasn’t as innocent in college as I had been when I was in sixth grade. So I moved on to Mike Hammer and Robert B. Parker. I thought it was a good tradeoff because the action remained paramount in the storytelling.
My 11-year-old tends to have the same taste in cartoons, superheroes, fantasy novels, and reading matter as I do. I blame me, because I read to him and continue to do so to this day. However, I never tried reading a Doc Savage novel to him because the world was too different from what he knows. For example, people didn't have cell phones in those days, and television was a new thing.
Then I found Tim Byrd’s first novel, Doc Wilde and the Frogs of Doom. The book captures the essence of a Doc Savage adventure from the cover featuring the hero with bronze skin, the body of an Olympic athlete, and a ripped shirt to show it all off. Not only that, the cover showcases a scene set in the jungle. I ordered it instantly.
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