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M.P. Shiel, who wrote science fiction, mystery, and other genre fiction from the 1890s through 1930s, first established himself as a member of a Decadent movement in England. He was influenced by the Decadent movement lastingly than most of his contemporaries, in part because the tenets of Decadence resonated with his own personal history and racial views. As the movement faded, Shiel built on the underlying logic of Decadence to create adventure novels involving race-based...

In „The Stray Lamb”, author Thorne Smith draws inspiration from his most famous works, the beloved Topper series. It follows mild-mannered investment banker, cuckold, ordinary, faithful, and dipsomaniac T. Lawrence Lamb. He is given a new perspective on life through the eyes of many different animals as he assumes the shape of many including a stallion, goldfish, dog, lion and many others. Mr. Lamb gains wisdom, fresh insight, and a new much needed exuberance for life as he...

Thorne Smith best-remembered for humorous novels, many turning on some fantastic plot device which thrusts the protagonist into grotesque predicaments, often via unwitting transformation. The 1926 publication of „Topper” brought the author immediate acclaim. Elegant, fun-loving George and Marion Kerby are the toast of the town, until they wreck their flashy car and discover they’ve become, well, ghosts. Making the best of a bad situation, they decide that being dead is the ...

Looking for a satisfying, meticulously exciting adventure with which to while away an afternoon? Look no further than „Squadron of the Damned”, a short story from one of the most early writers in the genre of fantasy and science fiction, David Wright O’Brien. O’Brien’s work was space opera or other routine adventure, but many of his stories betray a strain of humor, not unlike Henry Kuttner’s at that time. Some of the stories were co-written with his close friend William P....

After a „short, dumpy bald-headed guy in civvies” installs an invention – a time transfer device – in a tank that proceeds into the Georgia wilderness on maneuvers, a lightning bolt send the tank and its three operators backward in time. Shortly afterward they notice a single three-toes dinosaur footprint and disturbingly they hear the bloodthirsty scream of a very strange „bird”. „Blitzkrieg in the Past” is a science fiction from American fantasy and science fiction writer...

„The Collected Short Stories” is a collection of Abraham Merritt’s shorter works, and contains eight stories and two „fragments.” Included are: „The People of the Pit”, „Through the Dragon Glass”, „The Drone”, „The Last Poet and the Robots” and others. These short stories span the entire career of the man who has been called America’s foremost adventure fantasist of the 1920s and ’30s. The collection kicks off with one of its strongest tales, „The Fox Woman,” a tale of reve...

Originally published in 1932, „Burn, Witch, Burn! „ is a classic fantasy/horror and mystery novel by A. Merritt. In it, we meet Dr. Lowell, an eminent neurologist who becomes curious when a series of mysterious deaths comes to his attention. Men and women in the NYC area have been dying of no apparent cause, but with horrible grimaces on their faces and with very rapid onsets of rigor mortis. The trail of bizarre deaths leads to one Madame Mandilip and her doll shop, and be...

„Creep, Shadow! „ is the second novel in the Dr. Lowell series, preceded by „Burn, Witch, Burn! „. It’s short and it moves along very quickly but there’s plenty of tension and some genuinely creepy moments. Doctor Alan Carnac returns to the commonplace world of New York from the jungles of Africa, only to meet there a menace more mysterious and appalling than the savage magic of the witch doctors – his best friend has inexplicably committed suicide and Carnac begins a frant...

A jungle explorer back home in New York gets kidnapped by a part-Chinese man claiming to be Satan. „Satan” has set up a complicated game of chance, which is played by some of the most wealthy and powerful people in the world. Some have come to suspect that the game might be rigged. „Seven Footprint to Satan” is A. Merritt’s most famous mystery novel and Merritt’s Satan remains one of the most memorable super-villains in pulp literature, and the complexity which the author e...

One of the most gripping fantasies ever written, „The Moon Pool” embodies all the romanticism and poetic nostalgia characteristic of A. Merritt’s writings. The plot concerns an advanced race which has developed within the Earth’s core. Eventually their most intelligent members create an offspring. This created entity encompasses both great good and great evil, but it slowly turns away from its creators and towards evil. The entity is called either the Dweller or the Shining...

A simply amazingly creative novel by one of the best of the pulp-era authors, originally published 1931. While searching for lost Inca treasure in South America, American mining engineer, Nicholas Graydon stumbles across a lost civilization. A culture both more barbarous than our own and more civilized; more advanced and yet in some ways primitive. Is it a strange and highly advanced technology, or magic, that is responsible for the wonders of this land? Naturally our engin...

This science fantasy novel by Abraham Merritt concerns American Leif Langdon who accidentally discovers a hidden valley in Alaska that unexpectedly supports abundant life, including two tribes of people: a pygmy race; and warriors who descend from Mongols. The warriors worship an evil Kraken, whom they summon to offer human sacrifice. The inhabitants believe Langdon to be the reincarnation of their long dead hero, Dwayanu... There are lost civilizations, malignant gods, anc...

The goddess of love and beauty was adrift on an enchanted ocean in a magic world. The myriad forces of satanic evil plagued the vessel of the red-haired, passionate goddess. Only one man, John Kenton, the American adventurer, WWI vet and archaeologist, could save Ishtar’s priestess from the black magic which divides her world from ours. Written in 1924, „The Ship of Ishtar” is a universally hailed classic of the fantasy novel by A. Merritt and is, on surface at least, an ob...

Abraham Merritt tells a tale of awe and wonder as well as horror and dread to the speculative fiction and fantasy. „The Metal Monster” features the return of Dr. Walter T. Goodwin who first appeared in „The Moon Pool”. In the wilds of the Trans-Himalayan region, a quartet of adventurers led by Dr. Goodwin stumbles upon a tribe of human primitives forgotten since the age of Alexander the Great, and an awesome being of living metal commanded by the exiled Norhala. As Norhala’...

The second of the three Grandon of Venus novels. When the man who was Harry Thorne on Earth offered to swap bodies with a native of Venus, it was because he was bored with comfort and security, and craved excitement. And that was what he got – more than he would have bargained for – when he found that he had taken over the assassin-haunted role of a prince of a beleaguered throne in a land of ferocious beasts and inhuman foemen. With the help of the fellow interplanetary tr...

The Age of Miracles produces an amazing suicide and a triumphant return from death. A million dollar prize is offered – and won – for the most perfect automation. „The Revenge of the Robot and Other Tales” is a collection of thrilling sci-fi stories from mechanistic progress, written by Otis Adelbert Kline, who was an adventure and science-fiction novelist of the pulp era. Kline is perhaps best known for his novelistic feud with Edgar Rice Burroughs. He wrote „Planet of Per...

When Vernia, empress of Reabon, mightiest land of all Venus, was kidnapped by the strange marauders of the sea and was taken to their hidden port, it presented the Earthman, Robert Grandon, with his greatest challenge. Grandon goes on a quest to save her, a quest that will put him on challenges, and against enemies beyond everything he had came across before. And out of this comes a tale of action in which event follows event at unparalleled speed, and always against a back...

Those readers who had been charmed by Otis Adelbert Kline’s swashbuckling sci-fi adventures would not have long to wait before they were treated to that novel’s follow-up thrill ride. „The Thing That Walked in the Rain” provides another interplanetary adventure. Considered by many to be the only true equal of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline was a master of the sword and planet genre. From his position on the original editorial staff of Weird Tales and as the liter...

Rebels on the red planet! An Earthman Harry Thorn exchanges personalities with an ancient Martian and pursues a vicious criminal (another Earthman who had been sent earlier) who seeks to destroy Martian civilization. There’s also a race of yellow aliens apart from the hot-looking humanoids, and these guys have a death-ray which becomes important to the conflict. Follow Thorne’s amazing adventures on this distant world as he attempts to fulfill his obligations. „The Swordsma...

Otis Adelbert Kline is best known for his purported novelistic feud with Edgar Rice Burroughs. In 1929, long before planetary romance became a conventional genre, he wrote „Planet of Peril”, a novel set on the planet Venus and written in the storytelling form of Burroughs’ Martian novels. He followed this with two sequels. This novel is a science-fiction adventure on a world of semi-barbaric nations, ferocious beasts, gigantic reptiles, and maidens in distress. In it, Rober...

A missile is fired from earth to hit the surface of the moon. It is successful and the missilemen are heroes, until... THE MOON FIRES BACK! Terrible lunar missiles blast New York, London, and Paris. And an ultimatum is delivered from the unsuspected civilization of our satellite: „You have attacked us! You will pay the penalty! „. The Otis Adelbert Kline’s second book who was an adventure and science-fiction novelist of the pulp era. He is best known for his interplanetary ...

Originally published in 1931, „The Metal Monster” is a classic science-fiction novel by Otis Adelbert Kline (1891-1946), best known for his interplanetary adventure novels set on Venus and Mar. When the most powerful artillery, deadly bacteria and explosives known, and the most destructive methods available fail to be effective against some enemy’s unknown weapon of war, it is time, very frequently, to turn to some simple means of combat and attack. Paradoxically, though, i...

Silently, without warning they came, those fishermen of deep space who spread their net for man – living flying saucers the Earth must destroy – yet who multiplied by dying! „Spawn of the Comet” is a short alien invasion story by Otis Adelbert Kline. Otis Adelbert Kline (1891–1946) born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, was an adventure novelist and literary agent during the pulp era. He is best known for his interplanetary adventure novels set on Venus and Mars, which instantly b...

Led to believe that his natural mother is a chimpanzee Chicma, a young boy knows only the savage ways of the great apes. Kept in a cage, he is systematically trained to become a savage killer by the fiendish Dr. Bracken. But the young boy, Jan, is clever enough to escape from the lab and make it out into the surrounding swamp with his chimp mentor at his side and emerge near the Lost Empire of Mu. The swamplands offer Jan has his first taste of freedom. He grows up fast, an...