Continuing in the same strain, we present stinker number two:

The Devils Playground


Where do we start? The setting is before World War Two.
Its somewhere in Northren Ontario (Canada).
As an opener, we discover that the Ojibway Indians are still using stone tomahawks. This is referred to repeatedly, despite the fact that by 1900, it would be unlikely you could find an Ojibway that even knew how to make a stone 'tomahawk', let alone had one. They also use message drums, which I was given to understand were only to be found in Africa.

Savage has his associates stake out a mysterious iron mine; Littlejohn has actually joined the miners, while Monk and Ham pilot a birchbark canoe up and down the nearby watercourses, pretending to be some sort of sports fishermen. Sports fishermen accompanied by a weird pig and a weirder ape. Definately inconspicious.

Its important to note that while it seems to be a birchbark canoe, its actually a submarine with two different modes of operation. In one mode, a cover is drawn over the canoe made of fine metal mesh that somehow repels the water and extracts oxygen. The hydrogen is left to bubble to the surface. In its second mode, a 'glassite' cover is unfolded from a compartment and drawn over the top of the canoe, replacing the mesh. This plastic material is clear and rubbery, yet immensely strong.
In either mode, the canoe has ballast pumps, and a form of chemical rocket propulsion. The propulsion sounds like the machinery used in Savage's glass sub of Haunted Ocean, so I would geuss this farce is supposed to have subsequently occured. (Grammer terrible is. Muppet I am.)
The canoe also has extensive lockers, containing a complete chemical laboratory.
Lockers on a birchbark canoe.
Oh, and did I mention that the canoe slash submarine can be submerged and then recalled via a jolt from an induction coil? Convenient for those moments when the baddies might find your birchbark canoe with many useful additions and decide that something is amiss.

The ape continues to demonstrate his 'knot'ical prowness, able to untie Ham on command. Also able to tie the pig to a stake. This ape is making considerable progress. Next he'll be picking up rifles (Like that scene in Jurassic Park where the velociraptor picks up the man's rifle, and all I can think is Raptors with Rifles!! {The movie refused to become that cool.}.).

Monk and Ham engage in direct telepathy in order to exchange insults while underwater.

Its not just iron being mined, there is also nickel, which is being smuggled to Russia by six bearded dwarves, plus their ringleader Igor. They have a 'perfect defence' in the form of an enormous magnet which holds our heros helpless until they can take their shoes off and empty their pockets.

They are killing their enemies by terrorizing them with Indian drums and warwhoops played from hidden loudspeakers, and when the victim is sufficently demoralized, he's bundled into a Iron Maiden conveniently disguised as a tree, a stump or a boulder.

Savage is in the Fortress of Solitude and broadcasting instructions to his aides. His enemy use radio triangulation to find his poistion and dispatch a pair of twin engine attack bombers (Apparantly pulling them out of their ass, to use the vernacular). Luckily, the planes don't find the fortress, they find one of Savage's planes droning along through the sky.. They attack it, it fights back and finally is destroyed. Luckily, its a robotic plane, with a dummy at the stick. Savage is flying some distance away, and explains to the chorus that he expected radio triagulation and flew five hundred miles from the Fortress to transmit. He then hung around, apparantly to see what would happen. A pair of bomb-loaded twin engine bombers is what happened. Amazing, you never know what might fall out of the sky at you, over the cold Canadian North.

Now at one point he does use a gas that "[...] instantly effective, slowed up all motor processes of those who breathed it. He and Monk had held theirbreath. "It will only be effective for a few moments," Doc advised."
Its referred to as a 'new gas' and I suspect its an early version of Savage's amazingly effective tranquilizer gas.

I suspect from Chemistry's knot abilities that this is written by the same person as Land Of Fear.

Oh, and did I mention that the ringleader kept wearing a 'waxy mask' in public? That was so Renny could tell he was the bad guy, I suppose.
"Tall palms reached up into the sky like tentacles of death."

I knew long before I reached that line that any hope of finding sense in this book was gone.
I've been going through my Doc Savage collection, taking some notes on the unusual inventions. Not the stuff like his early development of television, or the autogyros and airship designs, or the ingenious burglar alarms. I'm interested in things like the mineral REPEL, or the barricade field out of the Spook of Grandpa Eben.
I wanted to get an idea of what unusual devices would be stored in the Fortress of Solitude, and a seventy year old design for two way television merely has curiosity value.
Then I made the mistake of reading The Land Of Fear.
Amung the more bizarre entrys are object compasses a la Skylark, using a new mineral from South America called 'Radiatite'. The villain wishes to steal the formula for crossbreeding rubber trees and cacti - a fantastic combination that Savage instantly names 'Rubberkak' .
The villain, of course is not helpless; he has examined a strange South African plant that can absorb moisture from the plants around it. Sort of a vegetative hydro-vampire. Using this knowledge, he constructs a funnel like device that can convert a human being to a skeleton in moments, merely by sucking all the water from his body. And without making physical contact. The water is stored in tubing wound around the villains body.
There is a house with insanely elaborate death-traps.
Chemistry the Ape is trained to tie knots and coil lines onboard a ship, so that he can work as a furry deckhand.
Savage falls victim to a trap that would serve only to hold a Road Runner: 4 inches of wet concrete with a thin layer of sand scattered on top to disguise it. As soon as Savage and his associates step on it, they are trapped helplessly.
...And to think that's all it would take!
Savage uses inflatable decoys to add verisimilitude to his ventriloquismic efforts.
He has powerful magnets and steel filings arranged to trap gangsters feet when they attempt to flee.
Et cetera, ad nauseum...
Now don't get me wrong. As any of my (non existent) readers can attest, I am a fan of Clark Savage Jr.
But I really think this one needs to be quietly swept under the carpet and forgotten.
Contour Crafting...
These guys are building house printers - or trying to. They've realized that the printhead can do more then just lay down structural material , that wires and insulation can be added at the same time. I imagine code compliance and unions may interfere with automated plumbing.
But they have no provision for scaffolding material - which in its cheapest form would just be sand.
So floors and roofs have to be craned on, after the fact.
Its a start, but its not far enough for my taste.
I want the machine to print a complete finished building. The potential for disaster relief, for instance.Rather than hordes of trailers,(for those lucky enough), or crude tarps and tents, machines could just start to spit out rows of houses.
Also, if the machine can embed wires and pipes, it should be able to embed steel reinforcing. Which means that structures can be built in quite radical shapes and forms.
Very thin walls, for instance, saving on printing time and material cost.
Another thing I haven't seen yet, is that if the concrete could be printed in a 'foamed' state, if the walls could be filled automaticly with tiny air cells, then the concrete would have significant insulation properties.
Considering that nearly everywhere on earth is either too hot or too cold to be comfortable, this is a major point. Of course, the print resolution would have to be small, but for a good finished surface, we want a good resolution, anyways.
Khoshnevis is also working on a concrete mixing printhead, which is an excellent idea. I've wanted a handheld one for years, its been a hot topic with me every time I've sweated over a wheelbarrow of concrete.
The use of automated trowels to modify the surface is also quite interesting.

But really guys, change the 'C's to 'K's Kontour Krafting....It sounds so '50's!
'Bathys' means deep, as in a 'bathyscape' or 'bathycolpia' (a delightful trait common to several of my girlfriends).
A deep bath could be referred to as a 'Bathysbath' to mix languages.
A deep bath that had been made or designed in the city of Bath would be a 'Bath bathysbath'.
To take a bath as per above would be to have a 'Bath bathysbath bath'.
Bath bathysbath bath...
Bath bathysbath bath...
Looked at closely enough, language is babble.
Terrifying.