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The life of an anthropologist is no doubt filled much of the time with the monotonous routine of carefully assembling powdery relics of ancient races and civilizations. But White's lone Peruvian odyssey was most unusual... ... Read more

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The Big Blow-up left huge radioactive sores (the graves of cities) all over the face of the Earth. In time, from some of the women who had been near these shunned areas, the first totally hairless babies began to be born.Their difference was not at first noticable. But eventually, they became known as "Baldies," with another new and terrifying difference: the Baldies were telepathic!From then on they were hated by normal humans, and sometimes hunted like animals.These five stories are the saga of their struggle for survival and their desperate search to find a safe means to give the power of telepathy to humans, so both kinds might live peacefully side-by-side. ... Read more

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Available for the first time... the complete saga of Thunder Jim Wade! Written by fantasy legend Henry Kuttner, this collection reprints all five adventures of Thunder Jim Wade from 1941. Long discounted as a Doc Savage clone, "THUNDER JIM WADE: THE COMPLETE SERIES" brings to life this classic pulp hero and shows him to be much more than a knock-off! Includes an all-new introduction by pulp historian Will Murray! ... Read more

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Complete reprint of this short-lived pulp hero
We have another great hero pulp collection from Altus Press.

This short-lived hero pulp series is collected completely for the first time.Written by the well-known sf author Henry Kuttner, who married another well-known sf author, CL Moore, these stories were published under the house name of "Charles Stoddard".Obviously, this meant the character was owned by the publisher (who is now defunct, so the character is apparently public domain).

The stories reprinted are: "Thunder Jim Wade", "The Hills of Gold", "The Poison People", "The Devil's Glacier", and "Waters of Death", all published in 1941 in 5 successive issues of "Thrilling Adventure".

Thunder Jim Wade is usually written off as a Doc Savage clone.He was raised by a lost civilization (Minos, a lost colony of Crete in Africa) after his explorer father died, and left when another explorer found the hidden land.He has various mental and physical abilities, most due to his upbringing.Afterwards, he became a sort of roving troubleshooter, operating out of a secret island in the south Pacific, alerted to trouble by agents scattered around in major cities.He created a unique vehicle called the Thunderbug (a combination tank, submarine, airplane).Its built using a special alloy (you'll learn more about this in the first story), and its hinted in a later story that the motor(s) may be atomic.

He has 2 two aides: "Red" Argyle" & "Dirk" Marat. Henry Kuttner described "Red" Argyle as "a burly giant with knarled hands ... and ... deft fingers". Sort of a "Monk" Mayfair type. Kuttner described "Dirk" Marat as "small, innocent-looking chap with blond hair and black eyebrows, and one great passion. That was for cold steel. He could handle guns, but preferred to work with knives."It seems that many of the other pulp heroes only had 2 sidekicks/assistants.Prehaps dealing with 5 or 6 was too many for some authors.:)

The first story introduces the reader to TJW, tho its clear he's been operating for awhile, when he has to return to the hidden land when criminal elements learn of it and invade it.TJW also tells his associates about his background (kind of an origin), which they hadn't previously learn.The second story deals with a group of criminals who try to create a jihad in the middle east, as a cover to rob several banks in the area.The third story deals with a hidden gold mine in the Andes, taken over by a criminal (with apparent Nazi connections, the first real mention of the WWII), and besieged by the local natives.The fourth story deals with two lost cities in Alaska, one of Norseman, the other of Russians who left during the period of Catharine the Great.A criminal is trying to stir up trouble over a chinese statue of gold.The fifth is considered the best story, dealing with a lost city in Burma, a gold-making machine, and the attempt to takeover this hidden land.

Overall, the stories aren't as good as I would have hoped.Not sure the cause.The length forces the author to wrap things up quickly.The format of the magazine they ran in may have been part of the problem, as it focuses on adventure stories, so the sciencefictional/fantastical aspects are downplayed.How much was the author constrained by editorial fiat.Who knows.There is great potential with these characters that I think wasn't fully utilized.

TJW is similiar to other pulp heroes: a physical marvel with a mysterious past, very smart/inventive.I was surprised by him smoking in the first story, as I don't recall any other pulp hero smoking.And he drinks in a few.

The book also has the original illustrations, and reprints the 5 covers of the issues of "Thrilling Adventures" he appeared in on the back cover, but he only appears on 2 covers, in a sort of Flash Gordon type outfits.

... Read more

Product Description
A terrific conglomeration for a reprint pulp often panned as third-rate. Besides Kuttner's fabulous 50,000-word novel, there is a "Penton and Blake" novelette by John W. Campbell, plus the following short stories: ~ ~~ ~ Welcome, Stranger [Monroe Schere]; The Rebels [Gordon R. Dickson]; Mousehole [Stuart Harbour]; Split Personality [William Morrison]; ... Read more

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Venturing to the surface of the sea to wage war for the Keeps--the domed undersea worlds where human colonists live on Venus--Ensign Brainard and his mercenary naval troops are about to face their greatest foe. Reprint. ... Read more

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thoroughly enjoyable read,worth reading more than once
reading this book is an enjoyable way to spend a couple of evenings. It is full of rugged characters and fops,which is the typical way David Drake writes his books.But it is fun watching the main characters get the best ofthe idiots.A good read but the Sharp End and the Northworld trilogy werebetter ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Strange creatures, magnificent cities and horrific danger!
This story begins in the deserts of Tunisia.World War 2 rages over the country and Alan Drake, an American Army Intelligence man, is struggling to complete his latest mission.His job is to get the Scots scientist Sir Colin Douglas out of the hands of the Nazis and to Allied safety.The two fugitives are making their journey cross-country be foot.They are pursued by two Nazi agents: Karen Martin, a sly, ruthless but charming woman of mixed races, and Mike Smith, an Americanized German with a history in racketeering and a strong instinct for killing.All four simultaneously pass over the crest of a ridge and come upon each other, but more importantly come upon a strange ovoid-shaped craft, which is half buried in the earth in a crater.The craft is glowing with heat like a meteorite, but its surface is perfectly smooth and unpitted as if its furious plunge from the sky has left it unharmed.The two parties draw weapons and a standoff occurs, but suddenly, as if commanded by telepathic control, all four walk into the strange craft.The craft buries itself in the ground and Alan Drake is dimly aware of strange 'dreams', of an alien creature hovering in a doorway, and of time passing.When all four awake they find themselves transported far into the distant future.What strange adventures and what dangers await the four twentieth century travelers?Will they ever return to their own time?

C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner are two famous authors of the 'Classic Era' (1930s to 1950s) of science fiction writing.Neither is remembered much today, though they are both well worth reading.The two authors independently established their careers as fiction writers, then married in 1940, after which they often wrote as a team.This novel is one of their early team efforts and it manages to successfully combine Moore's high-adventure style with Kuttner's "more cerebral storytelling."The story moves along at a quick pace: we hardly get used to one circumstance before we are thrust into some new occurrence.But there is depth also, especially when we read the brief, but interesting, descriptions of the various strange 'mind-states' that the hero, Alan Drake, experiences.Also of depth is Mike Smith's descent from cool, confident agent to fearful, crazy-man.

At around 150 pages this book is a quick read, and indeed it could possibly be describes as a novella.Moore and Kuttner wrote for the pulp magazine trade which, because of the limit of physical size, encouraged shorter works. (1943) is just the right size to curl up with for a weekend's entertainment.

Of course each book takes a place in the history of literature and this novel shows a number of similarities to the famous earlier book The Moon Pool by A. Merritt (1919).The chief of these similarities is a non-corporeal, 'energy' monster with mind-control capabilities.Moore and Kuttner have definitely put their own spin on these details and thus made the monster 'their own'.Anyone who has read the earlier book would not be disappointed by this one.

If you are interested in books which provide a lot of adventure with some depth of description and characterization this is the novel for you, but if you are looking for something like Nobel Prize winning fiction you should skip this one.This is basically good quality pulp and I found it very entertaining and am happy to award it four stars.

A VERY IMAGINATIVE SCI-FI/FANTASY FROM A GREAT WRITING TEAM
Catherine Moore and Henry Kuttner, generally acknowledged to be the preeminent husband-and-wife writing team in sci-fi history, initially had their novella "Earth's Last Citadel" released in the pages of "Argosy" magazine in 1943 (indeed, it was the very last piece of science fiction to be serialized in that publication). It was finally published in book form 21 years later. This is a pretty way-out piece of sci-fi/fantasy that reveals its debt to a handful of writers who had been major influences on the pair, particularly the florid early works of Abraham Merritt. In it, four participants in the conflict known as World War II are shanghaied from the beaches of Tunisia and brought billions of years into Earth's future. The quartet includes Alan Drake, a U.S. Army Intelligence officer; Sir Colin Douglas, a Scotch physicist whom Drake had been rescuing; Karen Martin, an adventuress working for the Nazis; and Mike Smith, an Americanized German also working for der Fuhrer. The four are forced to put their differences aside when they reawaken and discover a moribund Earth, populated by giant worms and wailing flying creatures and shrouded in perpetual mists. This early section of the book is very well done indeed; a bravura piece of outre and descriptive writing that really makes the reader feel the desolation of the landscape. Later, our band of confused heroes becomes involved with the jewellike, underground city of Carcasilla, the barbarous Terasi, AND a sentient, alien vortex of energy that is trying to suck the life out of Earth's last survivors. It is in the authors' descriptions of the fantastic, gravity-defying city of Carcasilla that their fondness for the hyperadjectival purple prose of A. Merritt is most noticeable, but nobody tops ol' Abe in this department. There are also tips of the chapeau to the works of H. Rider Haggard, the so-called "Father of the Lost Race Novel," not least of all with the inclusion of a fountain of light energy that bestows virtual immortality; only a very slight variant of Haggard's Fountain of Life in his classic 1887 novel "She." Kuttner's love of the works of H.P. Lovecraft, with whom Kuttner corresponded in the 1930s, is certainly hinted at in his descriptions of the life-draining Alien, a nameless entity so very different from terrestrial life that it might as well have leaped gibbering from the pages of the Cthulhu mythos. "Earth's Last Citadel" is a brief, fast-moving tale, and at 128 pages can easily be consumed in a few sittings. Typical for Kuttner and Moore, it is a perfect blending of their respective talents, and should satisfy most lovers of Golden Age sci-fi and colorful fantasy. As for me, I was a tad dissatisfied with the book's refusal to answer all my questions (such as why and how our heroes and the central Alien got into this mess to begin with!), and with how difficult it is at times to visualize certain aspects of the Carcasillan landscape. (The city's architecture is almost surreal, with its waterfall steps, liquid towers, etc.) Still, forcing a reader to exercise his/her imagination to the full certainly isn't the worst fault a writer can be guilty of! And to be completely honest, "Earth's Last Citadel" had me fairly riveted throughout...

the dust of the world's end
This old SF chestnut is from way back in 1943, and deserves to be rediscovered by historically-minded fans of the genre. Golden Age SF tales were often (though not always) stereotypical space operas and high-tech adventures. But occasionally you'll come across an unconventional and head-tipping gem, like this one. C.L. Moore's extra creepy and incredibly inventive works in both SF and horror really demand greater respect from modern fans, and her husband Henry Kuttner was a deservedly respected Golden Age bard himself. This book offers an incredibly creepy and disturbing tale of four WWII spies from both sides, who have somehow been transported billions and billions of years into the future. They arrive at a time when Earth is environmentally devastated and humans are nearly extinct, after an eons-old invasion by aliens who are themselves nearly extinct. In addition to the melancholy state of this really distant future world (way beyond the near-future or sort-of-far-future of most SF), Moore and Kuttner's aliens are inventively evil and horrifically "alien" in every sense of the world. There is also an effective subplot in which the humans from our age try to cope with the fact that their ideological disputes have become meaningless, but they still can't get over their personal animosity. This novel is recommended for fans of literary and speculative SF that rises above trends and stereotypes. It was so far ahead of its time in 1943 that it has become timeless today. [~doomsdayer520~]

Earth's (REAL) Final Conflict!
This is classic science-fiction at its best!

An American Intelllgence officer, a Scottish scientist, a renegade American turned NAZI and Karrin, the attractive racially mixed female NAZI agent confront one another, each side adamantly opposing the other when an apparent bolide crashes to earth.The group finds itself drawn toward the unidentified object which opens up and takes them in.

The four slowly come out of stasis and find themselves in what appears to be a vessel which, however, has no obvious machinery or operations console.Managing to open the door, they find themselves in a strange desert world with the oceans flashing by overhead, giant worms and fragile, winged people!

The Carcasilians (the natives to whose city they are led by a high priestess of the Light-Weavers)allow them entrance where they meet and are tricked by Flandy, an ancient human who has harnessed alien technology to give himself demigod-like powers.From Flandy, they learn that the ship from which they had escaped had been the first in a delayed invasion force untold millenia ago (i.e., in the 1940s).Everything in which they believed and for which they had fought was long gone and meaningless!

This relatively short work is astonishingly lively with many unexpected twists - and none more so than the surprising end which combines a strong sense of loss, hope and belief in the human spirit!

This is, undoubtedly, the best classic science-fiction work written and stands out even among such modern works as David Brin's SUNDIVER, Dan Simmons' HYPERION and Timothy Zahn's BLACKCOLLAR. ... Read more

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DID THE ALIEN PRODUCE SUPER-INTELLIGENCE OR SUPER-TREACHERY?

What do Stephen Court and Marion Barton of our time have in common with the treacherous barbarian conqueror, Thordred, or the vengeful Carthaginian warrior, Scipio, or Li Yang, the plump pleasure-loving Mongol Prince? They are all pawns in a million year plot to breed super-intelligence into the human race. One million years ago, Ardath, a male humanoid from a race possessing super-mentality survived a crash landing on Earth that killed all the other crewmembers, male and female. Seeing that this world supports primitive life, Ardath, determines to place himself in suspended animation and wait for evolution to produce intelligent humanoids on Earth. Then he will awaken and through a selective breeding program, to create a new race with super-mentality in the image of his own. All Ardath needs for his purpose is to wait for a mutant genus to be born. Then Ardath plans to take this man or woman and go on into time, until he finds a mental giant of the opposite sex. From their union will arise a race of mental giants who will be the off-spring and foster-children of his own race. It is a mission Adrath is sworn to complete - even if it takes a million years! What the alien Ardath leaves out of his calculations is that in human beings, along with super-intelligence come super-greed, treachery, and lust.  Kuttner's work "fuses vigorous plotting with romanticism. Colorful!" The Science Fiction Encyclopedia.

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Vintage science fiction.
Classic 1950 space fiction, with foreword by Martin Greenburg, introduction by Willy Ley, and including stories by Manly Wade Wellman, Robert Moore Williams, Lewis Padgett, Harry Walton, A. E. Van Vogt ("Far Centaurus"), Hal Clement ("Cold Front"), and Murray Leinster. ... Read more

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Ten terrifying tales by various horror authors.. ... Read more

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contents listing
Two Shall Be Born by Seabury Quinn
Tell Your Fortune by Robert Bloch
Time to Kill by Henry Kuttner
Alannah by August Derleth
Luana the Living by Ray Bradbury
John Barrington Cowles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Door of Unrest by O. Henry
Thurlow's Ghost Story by John Kendrick Bangs
The Man with the Brown Beard by Nathaniel T. Babcock ... Read more