Hunt at the Well of Eternity

Background: Charles Ardai, the founder of the successful Hard Case Crime imprint, has ventured into reviving another classic pullp genre, the "Hero Pulp", with the new Gabriel Hunt series.

Premise: Gabriel Hunt, and his brother Michael, are independently wealthy heirs, living in contemporary Manhattan. Together, they run the "Hunt Foundation", an organization which sponsors exploration, discovery, and historical research. Gabriel Hunt is the more extroverted and active of the two brothers and has a widely established repubation as an explorer and adventurer. His brother Michael is more scholarly, introverted, but also smoother when it comes to mingling in society and politicing.

Story: At a reception at the Metropolitan Museum, a show more beautiful Hispanic woman approaches the Hunt brothers. Although Gabriel tries to flirt with her, it soon develops that it is Michael that she is interested in. Just as she is about to give a package to him, a gang of thugs disrupt the reception, pulling guns on the well-to-do attendees. In the subsequent melee, the thugs kidnap the mysterious beauty, but Gabriel manages to obtain the package.

The package proves to contain an old whisky bottle from a long-extinct distillery. The bottle, now broken, proves to have contained only water. It comes wrapped in a confederate battle standard from the Civil War.

A little research proves that both these seem to have a connection to a civil war battle which took place in Florida. Gabriel leaves for Florida to investigate, only to find himself dogged by the same thugs. Subsequent clues lead him to Mexico City, the outlaw-plagued state of Chiapas, and, finally, the jungles of Guatamala -- belegeured, every step of the way, by the same gang of thugs.

The story comes to a climax in a forgotten Mayan city, which contains the eponymous "Well of Eternity", with a final confrontation between the leader of the thugs, versus Gabriel Hunt and a band of unlikely allies he has gathered in the course of the adventure.

Positives:

• As would be expected of the author of this installment, James Reasoner, the story flows smoothly and quickly.
• Stylitically, the prose is transparent and unobtrusive -- it never impedes the flow of the story.
• Characterization: Traditional pulp characters were seldom more than stereotypes, sometimes with one or two distinctive idiosyncracies i.e. "Ham" Brook's swordcane and stylish dress, in Doc Savage. The characterization here goes a little beyond that -- characters are usually believable as personalities, and the main character is given some inner life.

Negatives:

• The one thing I can complain about (once I adjusted my expectations -- see "Errata" below) is that the structure of the chapters begins to get a bit repetitive: I started to notice that every chapter seemed to end on a cliffhanger, or a sudden revelation.
• One thing the old Hero pulps did was to create a sense of urgency, usually fostered by a sense of a higher purpose: Some dreadful evil that must be stopped as quickly as possible, before it comes to full fruition. As contrasted to this, until about two thirds of the way through the story, Gabriel Hunt doesn't really know what is at state: all that he knows is that a bunch of thugs are interested in getting the flag he's received (the McGuffin of the piece), and in impeding his investigation. Therefore, although this is an entertaining as an adventure, it does work as quite the thriller you would expect, given its characterization as a revival of "Hero Pulp".

Errata: This is being marketed as a "Hero Pulp" -- but I'm not really sure if it quite qualifies. There are a number of traits which the hero pulps shared in common, which are not to be found in this initial entry:

• A sense of the grotesque: Most "Hero Pulps" had some kind of grotesque element -- all the better to lend themselves to vivid and lurid covers and illustrations. Sometimes, the grotesque was the hero, himself: e.g. The Avenger, with his dead white face. Sometimes it was the villians (most any of the adversaries of Secret Agent X or G-8). This novel has no such grotesqueries.
• An over-powering sense of urgency and pace: As noted earlier, the protagonists in "Hero Pulp" were usually working against some known, dire, threat to society as a whole, usually with either a known time element, or a villian whose threat to society as a whole steadily accellerated. Alternatively, some of the best pulp writers, like Lester Dent or Robert Hogan, had a knack for getting their heroes out of one bad stituation, into a worse situation, and from that to one even worse than the previous two, combined, so you had to keep turning the pages to find out how the hero was going to emerge unscathed. As contrasted to that, this novel has adventures occur in discrete phases: Attack at the museum, exposition, attack on the way to the airport, attack in Florida, more exposition, etc. Instead of one cohesive, flowing narrative, it seem more a series of discrete episodes, like an old-fashioned serial.
• Alienation: The best pulp heroes were usually alienated in some way: Doc Savage could never "fit in" with ordinary folks because of his appearance -- same for the Avenger. Characters who operated in the dark, such as the Shadow and Secret Agent X sacrificed personal lives and human relationships in their single-minded mission to fight crime. Gabriel Hunt, by contrast, is an accepted public figure, fully integrated within society.
• Omni-Competence: Most "Hero Pulp" protagonists were multi-talented: combining athleticism with skill in science, surgery, aviation, or a dozen areas. As contrasted to this, Gabriel Hunt, although intelligent, fully admits that he is not the scholar of the family, and turns to his brother Michael when he needs information

So is this book truly in the style of vintage "Hero" pulp?

No.

Is it, though, in the pulp mode?

Yes, I think it is -- but a significantly different genre of pulp:

Adventure Pulp: Pulp magazines devoted to narratives of adventures abroad were incredibly popular. Indeed, the pulp named Adventure was one of the most popular, feattured big-name writers, and because it paid higher rates than most pulps, its contents sometimes even bordered on true literature.

Although such magazines typically featured stand-alone stories, they were not above having series characters, such as Perley Poore Sheehan's "Captain Trouble" stories, which ran in Thrilling Adventure s Magazine. What these characters lack in terms of the omnicompetence of the hero pulp heroes, they made up for with the humanity, and consequent believability. (You can also download some of the original stories on the Pulpgen website, here and here).

And, indeed, when Charles Ardai says, in this interview, "I grew up reading Edgar Rice Burroughs and Dumas and H. Rider Haggard and Sax Rohmer (my father's copies) and Edgar Wallace (my mother's), and watching old Buster Crabbe serials whenever they were shown on PBS" -- this clearly suggests that it was these old-school adventure narratives he had in mind, rather than the narrower genre of Hero Pulp.

Evaluation: Although this novel, marketed as a return to "Hero Pulp" doesn't really fit within the constraints of that genre, it does work -- and work very well -- as an old-fashioned adventure story. Come to it expecting something closer to a 21th Century Alan Quartermain than a Doc Savage.

Assessment: Recommended.

Quite enjoyed it -- once I realized it wasn't really a Hero pulp, as advertised -- and am looking forward to the next entry in the series, Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear. show less

Hunt at the Well of Eternity introduces the world to Gabriel Hunt, whose idea of packing for a trip comes down to making sure he has his Colt revolver and Zippo lighter. Gabriel Hunt once wrestled with Chuck Norris, and their thunderous collisions piled up the ground until the Rocky Mountains were formed. Hunt even has a time-tested method for attracting the ladies--primarily by putting them into mortal danger in treacherous jungles. To tell the detailed plot of Hunt at the Well of Eternity would be a useless exercise--rest assured that the reader will find plenty of fighting and many exciting chases.

It's silly, of course, but the sensibilities that define the Gabriel Hunt universe are not different from any one of hundreds of show more explosion-laden action movies made in the past two decades. The character most similar to Hunt would be Indiana Jones, and the book even touches on an objective that is slightly speculative in nature, like the Arc of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Arc.

Bravo to Charles Ardai, editor of the Hard Case Crime series and author, for trying to revive the pulp adventure for a wide reading audience. As with Hard Case, the Gabriel Hunt books feature lurid art on the covers. While each book appears to be written to stand alone, the first volume hinted at the possibility for a massive plot arc. Given that different authors are employed on each volume, it will be interesting to see how it comes together. show less

So, when you look at the cover you know exactly what you are in for. A sort of pulpy action adventure novel with dames and bridges and a hunky protagonist. He punches people, shoots people, and swaggers around as he collects clues and fights the bad guys. It's pretty predictable, and run-of-the-mill.

The writing is acceptable, if uninspired. The characters are okay, but a bit cliched. There is some real mustache twisting and damsel threatening. The most interesting part of the story is when the main character reflects back to some previous adventures involving the esoteric. For the most part, it was kind of boring. Oh, and the hero has a gimmick. It's his gun, and it's not a very good gimmick. It's a pretty unrealistic weapon to take show more globe trotting. Antique guns are like that.

If you want it quick and predictable with full descriptions of the hero's attire, this is for you. show less

Fast paced. Fun. Very Lara Croft-ish. Very unrealistic...but then it is fantasy. Worth the time to read 175 pages.

This feels like a cheap version of Indiana Jones. If you can get past that, and the relatively little character development of the main character, Gabriel Hunt, and read it for what it is, then you just may like this book.

This story is very one dimensional. Like I said, there is little character development, very little scene development. What it is is an action adventure story that starts with page one and the action doesn't stop until the end. Sure, some of the action seems tired, like you've seen it in countless action movies, which is true. But I don't think you'll say this book is boring.