Lester Dent is best known as the man behind Doc Savage. But he wrote all number of other stories before he started chronicling the adventures of everyone’s favorite bronze giant. Here we have one of his earliest stories to appear in the pulps. From the pages of the September 1930 issue of Air Stories, it’s “Vulture Coast!”

It started as a test flight for the new amphibian. Then came the offshore rescue, pirate craft out of the China Sea, and a grim, terrible test for Power O’Malley, pilot.

• Download “Vulture Coast” (September 1930, Air Stories)

If you enjoyed this story, Black Dog Books has put out an excellent volume collecting 8 of Lester Dent’s early air adventure stories! Dead Man’s Bones: The Air Adventure Stories of Lester Dent includes “Vulture Coast” as well as seven other two-fisted sky adventures! It has an introduction by historian Will Murray and appendices featuring background material, outlines and story submission notes from Dent’s personal papers! A great read! Pick it up from their website! It’s Dead Men’s Bones by Lester Dent!

And as a bonus, here’s a short plucky article from the Norman, Oklahoma Sooner State Press!

Fiction Field Beckons To Tulsa Tribune Man

Sooner State Press, Norman, OK • 20 December 1930

Lester Dent, who for the past four years has been an Associated Press operator and maintenance man detailed to the Tulsa Tribune, writing fiction on the side, has received an offer from Sky Riders, fiction magazine in New York, suggesting that he join the staff of this publication, according to the Tribune of December 8.

Less than two years ago, Dent turned his attention to fiction writing. He sent out 13 stories, all of which were rejected, then wrote the fourteenth, and found a market for it. He has sold to Popular Stories, Air Stories, Top-Notch, Action Stories and Sky Riders.

Some of the earlier titles were: “Pirate Cay,” “Death Zone,” “Buccaneers of the Midnight Sun” and “The Thirteen Million Dollar Robbery.” Later he wrote “Vulture Coast,” “The Devil’s Derelict,” “The Skeleton From Moon Cay,” and most recentlv “Hell Hop.”