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Severed Press: Tasmania, Australia
2022 (PB)

Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear…not with the Lone Ranger, but with physician/archaeologist Dr. Richard Race, the reluctant-to-use-a-gun-because-he-saw-too-much-carnage-in-the-Great-War hero of this pot-boiler that might have been serialized in such 1930s men’s magazines such as “True,” “Adventure,” “Argosy,” or the dozens of similar pulps.

The action opens when an emaciated-half-crazed man stumbles into the night-time camp of Bedouin in the Rub’ al Khali (Empty Quarter) of Saudi Arabia sometime in 1933.  The Bedouin sense something frightening in the desert darkness, hastily break camp and head to the nearest village while the man babbles on senselessly but obviously in great terror.

Soon thereafter, Dr. Richard Race is summoned to the hospital in Muscat, in the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, by British political agent, Colonel Stanley.  The hospital ward has been cleared of all patients and staff except for the crazed man brought in by Bedouins, who continues to ramble on in Arabic, English, Portuguese and a language unknown to even the multi-lingual Race.  But he manages to discern certain mutterings about the “Atlantis of the Sands”—the fabled lost city of Ubar—and of rooms filled with gold and precious artifacts, guarded by nightmarish creatures.  Race records these nearly incoherent mutterings in his journal, but when he leaves his patient to report to Colonel Stanley, he is attacked by a mysterious figure shrouded in black with frighteningly opaque eyes and left unconscious while the attacker returns to kill the crazed patient.

Later, while dining and de-briefing Stanley, and against his better judgement, Race is talked into putting together a small cadre to set out into the Empty Quarter to discover the legendary lost city.  They are overheard by an eager American journalist, Jimmy Alsop, who not only insinuates himself into their desert venture, but introduces them to fellow American and explorer/guide Jaqueline (“Jaq”) van Alden.  Stanley is extremely dubious of hiring a woman for such an undertaking, but she wins over Race, and eventually Stanley, when she, with Alsop’s eager support, convinces them that her experience makes her perfect for the job.  Race fills in some of the background to the fable of Ubar, explaining that ancient Assyrian texts tell of a great city in the desert that was rejected by God, and that more recent Islamic writings tell of a city perverted by pagan people, and that just like Sodom and Gomorrah, it was destroyed by Allah. 

Jaq wishes to add one more member to their intrepid group—her friend and fellow adventurer, Abdulrahmen, who has an extensive private library on the arcane secrets of the desert kingdom.  It is fortuitous that Jaq wished to include Abdulrahmen, for although he is reluctant to tempt fate, he heroically saves the group from an attack by more black-shrouded figures and joins in the quest.  Using Race’s notes and information gleaned from his own library, plus the experiences he accumulated traveling with Bertram Thomas, the first Westerner to cross the Empty Quarter, Abdulrahmen believed it might just be possible to find Ubar.

Sands of Doom then shifts into high gear as the fearless explorers set off into the desert, shadowed by the shrouded protectors of the lost city and their nightmarish creatures.  The dangers they face in the desert pale in comparison to the perils they must confront once they learn the secrets of Ubar.  This pot-boiler on steroids has it all:  fantastic creatures, dauntless heroes and heroine and really bad guys in search of legendary relics (think Raiders of the Lost Ark)!  Don’t think great writing or three-dimensional characters, but rather a fun beach or mid-winter read.  Plus, it’s only 150 pages in length!  Three trowels for Sands of Doom.