The Falcon Killer

August 15, 2011
At the start of this “golden age” pulp novella, Hubbard (Dead Men Kill) describes the effect of a Japanese attack on the fictional Chinese port city of Nencheng: “First there had been a city; then there had been bright and hungry flame; now there was nothing but a corpse-gutted ruin where men moved with dazed determination to refuse the shambles all about them.” Unfortunately, the rest of this dated action yarn doesn’t live up to the power of the opening. Bill Gaylord, a typical two-fisted and resourceful Hubbard hero who’s known as the Falcon Killer for his success in shooting down Japanese aircraft, makes a dramatic entrance by parachuting to earth near Nencheng after his plane is hit. Gaylord takes refuge with the household of American Henry Thompson, complete with impending love interest in the form of Thompson’s daughter, Marion. Gaylord’s efforts to evade capture aren’t particularly exciting, and even newcomers to the genre will anticipate every major plot development.

October 1, 2011
Originally published in the April 1939 Five-Novels Monthly, this yarn is set in China on the eve of WWII. Saved from certain death by an American family living in the ancient Chinese city Nencheng, an American pilot risks everything to save his rescuers in turn from Japanese invaders. Bill Gaylord is no ordinary American pilot. He's Tzun Kai, the Falcon Killer, raised in China and determined to make the invading Japanese take as many losses as he can hand them. Hubbard writes with his usual gusto (Wings in the sky had passed their shadows over the land to drop their acrid death), and Gaylord is a typical Hubbard hero, tough and wily but also introspective and romantic. It's not L. Ron's best, and some dialogue may strike modern readers as a bit racist, though it wouldn't have to most readers when it was written. Fans of golden age pulp should definitely check it out.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)