Book Review: Skull Island

Skull Island by Will Murray

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I picked this up for the amazing idea of having Doc Savage and King Kong in the same novel. However, that wasn't the highlight of the book.

Doc Savage is an iconic figure whose father outsourced his upbringing to others to teach him all the skills he would need to continue the Elder Savage's quest to right wrongs and so he's bred to the peak of physical perfect, a virtual superman by virtue by all of his different teachers training. However, he hardly knew his own father.

After World War I, Doc is summoned by his father to serve on board the Orion, a scooner searching the Pacific Isles for Doc's grandfather Stormalong Savage. However, as the book begins, the sad fact is that Doc doesn't really know his father or understand him. The emotional distance in the relationship is illustrated by the fact that Doc's father makes him call him Captain Savage in the name of "ship's discipline" which is kind of absurd when there were four other members of the crew: all Mayans who couldn't speak English.

However, over the course of the first few chapters of the book, we begin to really get a picture of this father and son that is really quite compelling. Of course, we get to the action scenes, but there's still that development as we understand the complexities of this father-son relationship as well as the father-son relation between Captain Savage and his father Stormalong, it's a wonderful picture. Here, we see a different Doc Savage: Younger, more violent, and still not sure who exactly he is and wants to be, and we get to see some of that character form in the course of this story.

The ultimate goal is Skull Island and here we're treated to a lot of action adventure with attacks from deep sea Dayak Headhunters who are interested in getting the head of Kong but also willing to take the heads of one of the Savages and their crew. I should say that when I said Doc was more violent. This is what I mean. Fresh from the war, Doc has not developed his goal of avoiding taking life at all costs. He doesn't use Mercy bullets and there are some pretty gory chapters that I wouldn't normally associate with Doc Savage as in Chapter 14 he brutally repels a Dayak attack and does so again several times. I lost track of the body count in this one. This book is definitely not for kids.

Skull Island, in addition to boasting of King Kong, also has a prehistoric nightmarescape full of dinosaurs and all sorts of dangerous and frightening beast.

Other than the gore, the big downsides of the book is that given his billing, there really enough Kong in this story. In addition, sometimes the dialog between the Savages does drag particularly when they get into a battle of quotes as each Savage provides one quote after another from Shakespeare, Nick Carter, or Sherlock Holmes. They even did this when one character was dying.

I listened to the audio version and I do want to praise Michael McConnohie's wonderful narration. When he managed the duet between Doc and his father of Stormalong John, it was very powerful and moving.

While I wouldn't recommend this book for kids, it's a solid read for fans of Doc Savage who want to better understand the Man of Bronze and his origins.



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