- The Sky Walker
"The Sky Walker" is the 3rd
pulp magazine story to featureThe Avenger . Written by Paul Ernst, it was published in the November 1,1939 issue of "The Avenger” magazine.Publishing history
This novel was re-published under its original title by Paperback Library on August 1,
1972 .ummary
The Sky Walker seems to be a man walking in the air over Chicago, pushing a barrel-sized object. His appearance is associated with shattering glass, vanishing railroad tracks that cause a train to derail, the collapse of an office building and a pavilion. People panic, fearing foreign invasion. Inventors Max and Robert Gant are murdered by criminals, and Josh and Rosabel Newton, the Gants' servants, are enlisted by Benson to help in the investigation. The Gants invented a means of making a
glassite airplane truly invisible (except for the engine) and a vibration mechanism that can reduce a target substances to hydrogen. The criminals use the plane and vibrator to cause the public to lose trust in any steel not made from ore taken from the Catawbi Range, controlled by the gang. The gang, well-organized and ruthless, almost succeeds. Benson disguises himself as a gang member, interferes with the plane's invisibility treatment, and frees himself and his aides from a death trap. The gang escapes in the now-visible plane, and is shot from the sky by the army.Notes
* Benson is a world-class aerodynamics expert, and a “superb physician.”
* Benson is held by the underworld to be a deadly enemy, and has the friendship of the governor of New York and of President Roosevelt.
* This novel introduces Josh and Rosabel Newton, honors graduates of Tuskeegee Institute, daring alternatives to the usual portrayal of minorities in the pulps. Josh, courageous, intelligent, quick-thinking, pretends to be lazy, stupid, inarticulate as protective camouflage; Benson spots an honors fraternity key worn by Josh and is not fooled.
* Benson supports the weight of an elevator on his head and shoulders, and later ties a knot in the elevator cable with his bare hands, straining the reader's credulity.
* The unnamed foreign power suspected of attempting to seize Alaska, California, or Oregon is Japan.
External links
* [http://members.aol.com/macmurdie/covers/3911_cv.html Magazine cover for "The Sky Walker"]
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