As I said I would, I dug into the various lists of seven fave The Shadow novels suggested by the poll in The Shadowed Circle Compendium.
I figured out the ones that sounded like Must Reads for me. Five of them I don’t have texts for at hand. Some Shadow shopping in my future.
Nine others I have in-sanctum. One which a few people selected as best (and the main Maxwell Grant, Walter B. Gibson, put into a hardback collection in the 1960s), Grove of Doom, I remember reading decades ago, with the distinct impression that I didn’t like it. I guess I’ll give it another shot.
Meanwhile, I have plowed through The Salamanders, The Broken Napoleans, Lingo and The City of Doom. But if you’re new to this pulp series, I still think you won’t get a better approach to entry than the one Evan Lewis put forth years ago. Starting with those great early short novels, that’s the ticket.
So I’m reading along, using the excellent set of Shadow Doubles Anthony Tollin issued from Nostalgia Ventures. Very clean texts, I don’t recall a lot of typos — almost none — and everyone knows how sensitive I am to typos. Yeah, I have committed typos myself — but I’m not happy about it.
In The City of Doom The Shadow is creeping up on an old castle-like manor house with
huge stone gateposts. Each was surrounded by a battered, crouching lion.
Wait a minute! That’s got to be surmounted, right?
Like on Jeopardy!, where you flip a letter in a word to get another word. Easy to see how that one could have slipped past proofreaders.
Now you know, and The Shadow Knows.
