In this novel, Philip Jose Farmer, best known for his Riverworld novels, chronicles the earliest known adventure of 1930s and '40s pulp hero Doc Savage. Young Clark Savage, shot down while balloon-busting over WWII Germany, finds himself a captive in Camp Loki, a prison camp specially designed for incorrigible escapees. Doc pits his super abilities against Camp Loki's commandant, the wiley Baron von Hessel. The novel provides insight into Doc's motives for his later life of crime-fighting.

Farmer, who once wrote fictional biographies of Doc Savage and Tarzan, was well qualified to pen this prequel which stands on firm ground with the original Doc Savage series by Kenneth Robeson.