THE SECRET IN THE SKY

[Dave]

A man is kidnapped in san Francisco, and three hours later his body is
discovered in Nw york city.

This is a reallly good classic adventure -- though with lots of
capture and escape.

And the old copout ending -- all of the super flying machines are
destroyed, and the secret dies with them because th einventor was a
secretive recluse, left no notes, and DOC can't figure out how to
reverse engineer from the wreckage, even though he's flown in the
thing

dave

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Dave
A man is kidnapped in san Francisco, and three hours later his body is
discovered in Nw york city.
This is a reallly good classic adventure -- though with lots of
capture and escape.
And the old copout ending -- all of the super flying machines are
destroyed, and the secret dies with them because th einventor was a
secretive recluse, left no notes, and DOC can't figure out how to
reverse engineer from the wreckage, even though he's flown in the
thing
dave

I agree, a great one. And it's been a while, but wasn't there a bit
more characterization of Doc than usual. I seem to remember him so
fascinated with the machine that he was almost reluctant to stop studying
it and get re-involved with the ongoing adventure.


Ted

[Dave]

Think you're right on the characterization.

This one also walks the fine line on the wholgadget issue, I think.
The gadgets can be tough, and are often mishandled (Mostly by the
ghost writers). On one hand, DOC is a gadget guy, so he has to have
them. Otherwise, he and the guys are just going to blunder into
situations blindly and get bonked on the head (and this does happen.
How many times have you read the sentence, "For one of the few times
in his amazing career, Doc was surprised," on an adventure?).

OTOH, the gadgets can be a crutch. The dirgible lands, and DOC
disappears into the jungle with several equipment cases, and then
returns without them -- because he thought they'd all get captured and
held prisoner in a particular location and need to set off a sleepy-
gas bomb by remote control to escape -- right....... And how is it
that DOC can go through a rough-and-tumble fight, and still have thin-
shelled glass balls intact in his sleeve that he can burst by flexing
a bicep?

But SECRETis mostly right and fair.

dave