In planning the second Challenger Storm novel (”Sons of Poseidon”), I devised something new for Storm and co. to utilize in the story: a mobile, seagoing base of operations, housed in a tramp-steamer (a boat inspired by the Venture in the Recent “King Kong” remake.) The Godspeed would be full of 1930’s high-tech gadgets, weaponry, a small plane that could be launched from a catapult, and a mini-submarine. In short, it was a pulp-era James Bondian thing, and I thought it was a cool invention that I came up with. Gave myself a gold star and everything.

Then last night, the roof fell on that idea.

I had picked up my only original copy of Doc Savage (”The Boss of Terror”, if you must know) and was thumbing through it while digging on that wonderful old pulp smell. I had never really looked at the issue closely so I was happy to see Bill Barnes and The Skipper stories as back up features. I had only heard of them and wanted to check them out, so I started skimming.

And discovered that I was ripping something off without knowing it.

This is The Skipper’s entry from Jess Nevins’ directory of pulp heroes:

“Captain John Fury was the Skipper, appearing in an eponymous magazine from 1936 to 1937. Assisted by his first mate, “Marlin Spike” Briggs, his second mate, “Hurricane” Dan Belmont, “Grump” Rollins, and a friend, Peter Doom, the Skipper piloted the Whirlwind, a tanker converted into an armed cruiser. Very armed; the Whirlwind was packed to the gills with guns and torpedoes and mines. During the pre-War years the Whirlwind was the scourge of pirates and all oceanic wrongdoers. During the War the Whirlwind successfully fought the Axis ships. Fury himself is a merciless scourge of criminals and evil, being brutal when he needs or wants to be and even engaging in torture if the ends, for him, are justified.”

The story I began reading last night also mentioned that the Whirlwind was also equipped with a submarine and planes.

Ack. I hate when I do this. I have a perfectly good idea, then find out that it’s not as original as I thought. In agitation, I labelled myself an accidental plagiarist and began to think about scrapping the idea for the Storm novel…

Until I discovered today that I’m not the first one.

Take a gander at this Wikipedia entry regarding Clive Cussler’s “The Oregon Files” series, particularly this passage:

“Juan Cabrillo is Chairman of the Corporation, a special US Government-sponsored group that operates out of a ship called Oregon, a marvel of scientific research equipment bristling with state-of-the-art weaponry - but disguised as a heap of junk. Cabrillo and his crew of mercenaries with a conscience are able to cross the high seas in their ‘rusting’ tub unmolested, seeking out those beyond the arms of the law and dealing out justice to any who would plot chaos on a global scale.”

After more research, I discovered that the two fictional ships also share a unique propulsion system: Fury’s Whirlwind used a kind of aquatic ram-jet which sucked sea-water in the front end and shot it out the other side. Cussler’s Oregon, however, uses an electromagnetic system for it’s speed.

All of this made me rethink the concept within the MARDL universe.

So what if it’s a similar concept? So what if it’s been done before? Well… what hasn’t? Most pulp entertainment (indeed, most entertainment in general) is derived or copied from other sources. How’s the saying go? “Art is dead”?

And anyway, my concept has differences from theirs: The boats in “The Oregon Files” and “The Skipper” series only look like hunks of junk; in my version, the boat really is a piece of crap, and there is no fancy propulsion system. It works better anyway for my stories, as I try to stay somewhat realistic.

And now, I can say my concept of the Godspeed is a tribute to those other cool ships.