Miracles for Sale

Miracles for Sale ~ Tod Browning's final film is not only pedestrian and toothless, but also a big disappointment for this Browning fan. Miracles for Sale from 1939 is based on the mystery novel, Death from a Top Hat, by Clayton Rawson, the first in a series featuring the Great Merlini character.

Only a very young Robert Young (who plays the Amazing Morgan, inexplicably changed from Merlini) really stands out in this murder mystery wrapped up in the world of magicians, escape artists, and con men. TV's Uncle Charley from "My Three Sons," William Demarest has some fun here too as a (surprise) curmudgeon.

One would think this setting would be right up Tod Browning's alley, but he never really takes hold and makes it his own. Reminiscent of Houdini's war on frauds late in his life, only nowhere near as exciting, this one has little of that old Browning -pardon the pun- magic.

Origins of Dillon

Folks who read my stuff know that I'm not fond of origin stories. Oh, I like to know the origin of my heroes but I would rather not be beaten over the head with them. I dislike reboots for this reason, inevitably we're going to have to go through the origin all over again for the umpteenth time.

Remember the superheroes of the movie serials? You would get one line about where the hero came from, and then it was off into the action and the meat of the story. That's all you really need. Remember the origin of Batman in the 1966 TV series? It was there, done just like that, in one line of dialogue. Heck, they did it with the man of steel in under thirty seconds in the opening of every episode of "The Adventures of Superman."

Similarly I feel the same way about the training of heroes. I was soured on "Smallville" fairly early and it's pretty much how I feel about Fox's "Gotham" for this same reason. I don't want to see the hero learning to be the hero, I want to see the hero be the hero. This is why I approached two recent books featuring one of my favorite pulp heroes, Derrick Ferguson's Dillon, with great trepidation.

Derrick has purposely been vague about the origins of his hero Dillon, telling us just what we needed to know about his mysterious beginnings, and leaving the details in the shadows. I expected to be bored quite honestly learning the finer details of his origin. I was wrong. In Young Dillon in the Halls of Shamballah, a novel meant specifically for a young adult audience (but I notably enjoyed it as much as I have all the 'adult' Dillon novels), we meet the hero as a child, and are walked through the details of what we had been told vaguely, and I dug it.

Derrick knows the secret. He wasn't telling us the origin of Dillon even though it's in there, or at least parts of it are - he was telling us a story. This is key for beginning writers. I run into so many folks, especially in the NaNoWriMo, that have a great idea, a cool concept, some intriguing characters - but what they don't have is a story. DF pulls me happily through an origin story I didn't want with a compelling story I did want. Thumbs up.

The second part of Dillon's origin did more than give me a compelling story, it introduced me to classic pulp character I was heretofore unaware of, and a writer whose work I'm now a fan of. The Vril Agenda, written by Derrick Ferguson and Joshua Reynolds, stars a slightly older Dillon in search of training as a hero, and the adventurer known as the Super-Detective, Jim Anthony.

This novel was everything I could have wanted, and never could have imagined I wanted in a pseudo-origin story/pulp adventure. The only thing I could have wanted more of would be, well, more. The Vril Agenda has a story told in two timelines, ancient secret societies, secret empires, mad villains, brave heroes, Nazis, and pulp, so much pulp. I loved this book, and I highly recommend it, along with Young Dillon. If you crave adventure, origin or not, new pulp is calling you.

Derrick Ferguson's Dillon and the Legend of the Golden Bell

I have known Derrick Ferguson a long time as an online friend, and I'm proud to consider him a friend, even if we've never met in real life. For those of you out who think I'm an authority on film, I bow to Derrick as a master. He's given me great writing advice over the years, but none so informative as the lessons I have learned simply by reading his work.

There's a story I've told Derrick, and I guess (I'm really thinking positive here) the whole world as well on the GAR! Podcast, about a visual aid I was using at a point where I was trying to write in a pulp style. It was a sign I taped over my desk that read "I want to be Derrick Ferguson when I grow up." That's how well the man knows his genre. Derrick knows pulp, and he knows it so well, he has created a pulp hero for a new age - Dillon.

Dillon is a man who would make Doc Savage proud to know him, that's how pulp he is. He is a man of skills, of integrity, of style, of exotic and mysterious background, he's a lover, he's a fighter, and most importantly he is a man of his word. Dillon is that rare entity in this dark world of ours - he is a likable hero we can root for, and a man who will win for the right reasons.

In the second novel (although it doesn't much matter in what order you read the books) in the series, "Dillon and the Legend of the Golden Bell," this pulp hero for a new age faces all the threats and situations that make the genre special. He must find an ancient artifact of great power, stop a civil war in an exotic island nation, and save the entire planet from the coming of a demon, along the way fighting femme fatales both human and shape-shifting, jet pack soldiers, warring airships, giant barbarian kings, and old fashioned tough talking gangsters. This was a hoot.

When was the last time you read a book that was fun? When was the last time you read a book where you cheered out loud for the hero? Where you hissed the bad guys? Where you laughed at the quips of the good guy? This is the book (books), and the hero for you. Check out "Legend of the Golden Bell," and the rest of the books in the series, as well as all of Derrick's other work. It, and he rocks.