As we enter its final week, The Astonishing Adventures of Doc Wilde Kickstarter is at 141% of its original goal and (hopefully) still climbing. After building the project around three novels (all being published this year), in recent days I added an option allowing supporters to also get the 4th book, Doc Wilde and The Daughter of Darkness, which will be released in the first half of 2013.

The most popular option supporters are choosing gets all four novels in ebook format for only $20. Higher level rewards include trade paperback copies, signed limited editions, several additional short Doc Wilde adventures, and other cool stuff.

I also added a bonus reward that all supporters will get for free if we pass 200% of goal, which you can read about here.

Over the course of the Doc Wilde Kickstarter (which ends April 28th), I’m sharing a few of my favorite reviews that the first book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, received when it was originally published by Putnam. Today’s is by novelist Bill Crider:

Looking for a Doc Savage pastiche and a Lovecraftian adventure all in one?  Look no further.  Tim Byrd has it for you right here.  Doctor Spartacus Wilde and his two kids, Brian and Wren, are plunged into action almost from page one when they learn of the disappearance of Grandpa Wilde.  They go from the top of what’s obviously the Empire State Building to the South American jungle, tangling with all kinds of weird frogs, not to mention frog-men, along the way.

Wilde is so much like Savage that I expected to him to start trilling on any page.  He never did, but his shirt is always ripped.  So is Grandpa Wilde’s, for that matter.  Like their dad, the kids are fluent in many languages, know more science than a college prof, know more literature than your average English teacher, and are as agile as monkeys.  Doc’s other companions are the ape-like Declan mac Coul and the cultivated Phineas Bartlett (he’s “good with quotations”).  The whole crew speeds from one cliffhanger to the next so fast that you’ll hardly be able to keep up.

Byrd is clearly out to hook both the youngsters and the older folks who’ve read Doc Savage.  Who else would he expect to get this joke: “The impact rattled the man of brawn’s skeleton, . . .”  I’ll bet Byrd’s been waiting years to get that one into print.

It’s all in good fun, and you should know by now if this is your kind of thing.  If it is, you’re probably already waiting for the sequels, which should come along very soon.

Looking for Adventure? GO WILDE!!!