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...
Hamilton Cleek is a renaissance man for the ages: an intellectual giant with the brawn of ten men, he serves as a consulting detective, often helping Scotland Yard with particularly challenging cases. With the power to distort and transform his visage and mimic any mannerism he desires, Cleek, with the assistance of his cockney assistant „Dollops”, makes a super natural detective! In „The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel”, a young woman concerned that the turmoil in her family ...
Hamilton Cleek, once known to Scotland Yard as „The Vanishing Cracksman” is a reformed crook turned detective. He has a gift for both deduction and impersonation, a curious combination of Sherlock Holmes and Peter Sellars, which he uses to solve mysteries. After a long Channel crossing, Cleek drives a lady home only to discover her aunt has been murdered. But the mystery has only just begun. It leads to a mysterious and sinister chain of events, which Cleek and Superintende...
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...
British novelist William B. Maxwell (1866-1938), the son of novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon, wrote both plays and novels. He is well known for his drama „The Last Man In” (1910) and the satire „The Naked Truth” (1910). Maxwell wrote almost 40 novels which include „Tudor Green” (1935), „The Ragged Messenger” (1904) and „The Devil’s Garden” (1913). He also enlisted as a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers at the age of 50, with the outbreak of World War I. Written in 1911, „Mrs...
Sherlock Holmes fans will find a lot to like in Thomas W. Hanshew’s „The Riddle of the Night”. Thomas W. Hanshew (1857-1914), who also wrote as Charlotte Mary Kingsley, was an American author and actor best known for his stories of Hamilton Cleek, the man of the forty faces, who through his talents for disguise solves crime and mystery in London. He wrote some books in collaboration with his wife, Mary E Hanshew. In it, renowned consulting detective Hamilton Cleek is faced ...
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...
As we continue to follow adventures of „Jan of the Jungle” written by Otis Adelbert Kline, we find him engaged to his fiancée Ramona and reunited with his parents. Together with some friends, they start a cruise on the Indian Ocean. However, the happy days don’t last long for Jan as he gets thrown in the shark infested waters and Ramona gets abducted. Follow the exploits of „Jan of the Jungle” as he strives to save his future wife from a hideous death at the fangs of the Bl...
”Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood” is one of the masterpieces by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, who was a prolific American author of dime fiction. Deeds of daring, thrilling peril and romantic incidents in the early life of W.F. Cody, the Monarch of Bordermen. It is a depiction of life and the ups and downs that are major influencing factors. The novel honestly portrays how fate plays with mankind and the turmoil that follow them. Thought-provoking! The autho...
„The Outlaws of Mars” introduces you to Captain Jerry Morgan and his travel to Mars in the early 20th century. When Jerry, expert swordsman, left the American Army, his scientist uncle, Dr. Richard Morgan, had no difficulty in persuading the adventurous young man to take a trip to Raliad, largest city on Mars in a space ship, directed by mental telepathy. For Jerry’s first moment there involved him in a costly mistake which was to throw him into conflict not only with the f...
Meet the another sci-fi story from the master of adventure and science-fiction novelist of the pulp era Otis Adelbert Kline, best known for his interplanetary adventure novels set on Venus and Mars, which instantly became science-fiction classics. Smaller than a microbe, the Stranger was but how he grew! Ralph Blake’s surprise kidnapping flung him into fierce adventure in the torrid Sahara. Then a strange creature from Mercury stepped in and even Ralph’s death couldn’t prev...
This is another classic of golden-age detective fiction featuring Detective Hamilton Cleek who was introduced in „Cleek: The Man of the Forty Faces” first published in 1913. This super sleuth and master of disguise will bedazzle you once more as he ingeniously solves a new case. Without the logical mind and condescending manners of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Hamilton Cleek worms into your heart through your eyes and via your brain. In this tale, Cleek investigates the siniste...
„"California Joe, the Mysterious Plainsman"” is a book first published in 1900 written by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham who was a Colonel in the Confederate Army, a professional military officer throughout the 1860s, and a prolific author of books on the American West. It is a dime novel, a very short novel, about the life of a young man who acts as if he is immortal. At first, many characters in the book think that Joe is a ghost or a „"spook"” because of his all black clothes...
Malcolm Jameson was an American Golden Age science fiction author who began writing only seven years before his death. Drawing from his experiences of navy and warfare he gave a personal touch to all of his stories. He is now chiefly remembered for his Captain Bullard stories which chronicles the journey of a young officer into a fleet admiral of space ship and to most critics seem like a precursor of the modern day space exploration series like Star Trek. „Wreckers of the ...
”When the World Shook” is a classic story, written by H. Rider Haggard, telling about the horror of a ghost town. The plot revolves around three friends – one absolutely unshakable skeptic, the other – an absolutely believer, and the third and central character is a person who is looking for meaning in life. A hurricane shipwrecks them on an unknown island in the Pacific inhabited by a degenerating people who worship an ancient god called Oro. Three men experience all sorts...
Collection of several short mysteries, starring consulting detective Hamilton Cleek and his incredible skills at disguise with the assistance of his cockney assistant „Dollops”. Cleek is poacher-turned-gamekeeper, a master criminal who decides to turn straight and work for Scotland Yard after being stricken by the sight of a lovely, innocent young woman whose jewels he was about to pinch. Told as a fairly continuous narrative, held together by the underlying thread of Cleek...
Hamilton Cleek is back – or is he? Margot, Queen of the Apaches, the notorious French criminal gang, has been released on bail and vanished, Inspector Narkom of Scotland Yard has a series of inexplicable murders to solve, there is talk of revolution in Mauravania. And Cleek is missing. The stories collected here are some of the best about the clever and resourceful private detective Cleek, the man of the forty faces, who through his talents for disguise solves crime and mys...
In „The Riddle of the Mysterious Light”, consulting detective Hamilton Cleek is en route to meet with Scotland Yard detective Narkom when he’s intercepted by a roving gang of nefarious ne’er-do-wells. Can he muster his mighty intellect and physical prowess and hatch a plan to escape his captors? Hamilton Cleek is the central figure in dozens of short stories that began to appear in 1910 and were subsequently collected in a series of books. Cleek is a detective as remarkable...
By the author of the celebrated „Buffalo Bill” stories. Colonel Prentiss Ingraham was a Colonel in the Confederate Army, a professional military officer throughout the 1860s and a fiction writer. As well as writing under his own name, he published under pseudonyms including Dr. Noel Dunbar, Dangerfield Burr, Major Henry B. Stoddard, Colonel Leon Lafitte, Frank Powell, Harry Dennies Perry, Midshipman Tom W. Hall, and Lieut. Preston Graham. „Buffalo Bill’s Spy Trailer: The St...
The beauty of Ayesha was the only reason for the conflict in many countries. Her father was very jealous of his daughter for the pretenders for her heart. Ayesha helps the goddess Isis, and as a reward Isis leads her to the hidden kingdom of Kôr in Africa to usher in the new Golden Age. The kingdom of Kôr hides many secrets, including the Flame of Eternal Life, where in the end Ayesha’s obsession, obsession and desire lead to her fall.
After a military career that ended with a stint as a colonel in the Confederate Army, Prentiss Ingraham turned to writing, penning hundreds of books over the course of several decades. This charming novel centers on a remarkable young man named Will who has a run-in with a mysterious figure that leads to Will honing his skills as an amateur detective, investigator and go-between. „Wizard Will Wonder-Worker; or, The Boy Ferret of New York” is a romance of mysteries in metrop...
A classic mystery novel featuring Hanshew’s best-known creation, the consulting detective Hamilton Cleek, known as „the man of the forty faces” for his incredible skill at disguise. An ex-cracksman turned Scotland Yard detective, Cleek’s slim and faultlessly dressed form is topped by an india-rubber-like face, of which he has remarkable control. Cleek is based in Clarges Street, London, where he is constantly consulted by Inspector Narkom of Scotland Yard. Cleek is the cent...
Henry Rider Haggard describes the plight of the protagonist. He loses his wife and daughter in a car accident, as he thinks through his fault. The main character goes into great depression and begins to drink. When the man was thinking about suicide, a stranger named Joren appeared and told him not to worry. He tells him about reincarnated souls and life after death. Joren teaches him to transcend his body.
