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Post by samdawson on May 16, 2021 13:45:00 GMT
Thanks AndyDecker, I've used IMGBB here before and only got clickable links (I think because the BBCode window will not come live), so will do that again now, then I'll have to leave it, as am working today, or meant to be
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Post by dem bones on May 16, 2021 18:06:40 GMT
Andrew Brosnatch Stephen Bagby - Whispering Tunnels: Novelette of Verdun, the World War, and Devil-Worship. Left this one until I had a spare hour to give it my full attention as not only is it the longest piece in the issue, but the one I was most looking forward to reading. According To Robert Weinberg, this "less-than-inspired ghost story" was a readers favourite and "for a number of years was ranked the second most popular story ever to be published by 'The Unique Magazine'." Aamazing, then, that it doesn't appear to have been anthologised (?). The novella concerns events which took place beneath Fortress Vaux, N. E. France, in August 1923. After the Battle of Verdun in 1916, the Fort fell into the hands of the German enemy, due, it's believed to the disgraced Jules Chauman, a formerly revered young officer turned traitor to his country. We have this from the testimony of Captain Emile DeBray, who discovered Chauman's treachery shortly before the latter's cowardly flight from justice. The tunnels beneath the Fort are haunted by multiple ghosts (one of them, a mournful Jules Chauman), the most feared being a phantom whistler - those who hear it either die or go insane shortly afterward. The worst affected section long operated as a torture chamber, and it was here that Guilbert Savannes, Devil-Worshipper and Sorcerer, met an agonising end in 1791, but not before he had cursed the King, his hirlings and the scene of his suffering. "My familiar, Grothar, created in blood, nourished in blood, shall be awakened by blood to wreak vengeance on all who dwell here." Dr. Littlejohn, veteran spook-hunter teams up with Miles Cresson, a young American soldier, to solve both the mystery of the tunnels and the unanswered questions surrounding the fall from grace of the latter's best friend, the supposed traitor, Jules Chauman. Miles is sweet on Jules' sister, Audrey, the most beautiful woman in the history of humankind, and sworn to clear the man's name. Alas, Audrey has already promised herself to the dubious Captain DeBray on the understanding that he will provide new evidence to the effect that Jules was, after all, innocent. Audrey is not looking forward to her wedding night. "My friend. I despise him," she said feelingly. "Yet I have made mother believe that I love him. It is only because she loves me that she would permit it. Mother is unaware of the bargain - DeBray's promise to restore the estate in her name after the ceremony. The wedding is to take place two weeks from today. The banns have been published, and alas, I must go through with it." On receiving such crushing news, Cresson is almost relieved to return to the tunnels to confront the whistling menace. In true Gothic tradition author Bagby piles horror upon startling revelation upon mounds of skeletons as Littlejohn and Cresson confront Savannes' shapeless black mass of an elemental to gain access to a foul-smelling vault beneath the tunnel. Meanwhile, a distraught Audrey prepares to walk down the aisle with the odious DeBray ... I can see why it was popular and just as easily understand how it fell out of favour once Lovecraft, CAS and the Mythos mob came into fashion. Am very glad for opportunity to have read and thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Post by dem bones on May 17, 2021 7:11:30 GMT
"Carry my senses up and down the world!" Andrew Brosnatch If this issue has lacked anything it's a barking weird science story. Step forward .... Will Smith - Wanderlust by Proxy: Savu and the South Seas - Bizarre Tale of Radio. Kreig summoned a servant and gave him a low-toned order.The man returned, bearing a rather queer-looking set of goggles and a thing that resembled as much as anything else the upper section of a diver's helmet. "Thank you Perkins, that's all. Mr. Bakke, I had the parts for these three things constructed by a dozen different men and fumbled those parts together myself. My secret is safe. Now before I go any further I shall demonstrate to your satisfaction that I am not crazy. I want you to put on these goggles and look out the window ...." Thaddeus Kreig has been a bedridden paralytic for forty-five of his sixty-five years. During this time he has studied electricity and radio transmission until, finally, he has mastered the ability to vicariously experience travel all across the globe. All that's required is for an able-bodied volunteer of the same age, build, and thwarted travel ambition as himself to take an all-expenses paid world tour while wearing a strange, helmet-like contraption on his head at all times. A transmitter allows the invalid to share the voyager's adventures, see what he sees, hear what he hears, smell what he smells! His press advertisement attracts a massive response, but among those who reply, only one is suitable for the position. Mr. Bakke might almost be Mr. Kreig's double! Bakke boards a ship in San Francisco and sets out on the adventure of both men's heart's desire. Kreig has chosen well. Bakke, loyal to his benefactor, never once removes the all-important goggles, even when, on Savu, he spends the night with a beautiful girl. Unfortunately, this Paali Pi-lang is promised to Plwoma, the torture-happy leader of a band of "half-baked savages." His jealous streak has already accounted for several of Paali's lovers .... Another must, along with Scarf of the Beloved, for personal alt- Not At Night selection. Whispering Tunnels would have made it were it not so long. Most prominent on subs bench. The Tomb-Dweller, The Figure of Anubis and Sea Change.
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Post by dem bones on May 17, 2021 20:18:14 GMT
W. Chiswell Collins - Leopard's Trail: In the Clutches of the Terrible Leopard's Society of Africa. Sierra Leone. Great white hunters Chisholm and Hodgins defy the Leopard men to seek out German war booty in the bush. " ... just at sunrise his house boys came rushing in to say that poor old Adamou's body had just been found outside the compound, mauled by some ferocious beast, covered with blood and bits of yellow fur, and the entrails missing." Still they won't be deterred .... According to the author, story based on authentic Leopard Man outrages during the great war. Lady Anne Bonny - Wings of Power [Part II of III]: From the helpful 'Synopses of Preceding Chapters' this sounds barking, but I'm wary of WT serials - the blurbs so often promise far more than cruelly prolonged story delivers - and I've not the patience to read parts I and III from a screen, so will reluctantly give Lady Bonny's opus a miss for time being. Finally, this month's The Eyrie has its moments. "L. Phillips, Jr., of Berkeley, California, writes: “It seems to me that there are plenty of ideas for weird and hair-raising stories without invading the graves of the dead. I think you should cut out what you term the "necrophilic". The old Black Cat was one of the most widely read magazines of its day. They went in for the weird and unusual, too, but they never printed anything sane people would turn from in disgust. No rotting corpses in theirs. The mysterious, the supernatural, the startling and bizarre from all lands and all times — I wouldn’t place a single limitation on locale, historical period or race, but I would draw the line at the grave. Even in fiction the dead have a right to rest in peace.” The vote of our readers, to date, is overwhelmingly in favor of a few horror stories in each issue. But those who want cannibalistic and blood-drinking stories (specifically those who endorse Mr. Eddy’s “The Loved Dead” and Mr. Miller’s “The Hermit of Ghost Mountain”) are as few as those who want no horror stories at all. We bow before the decision that has been made by you, the readers; and along with other bizarre and weird tales we shall continue to print horror stories — but they will be clean."Andrew Brosnatch
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Post by cauldronbrewer on May 17, 2021 22:36:20 GMT
Finally, this month's The Eyrie has its moments. "L. Phillips, Jr., of Berkeley, California, writes: “It seems to me that there are plenty of ideas for weird and hair-raising stories without invading the graves of the dead. I think you should cut out what you term the "necrophilic". The old Black Cat was one of the most widely read magazines of its day. They went in for the weird and unusual, too, but they never printed anything sane people would turn from in disgust. No rotting corpses in theirs. The mysterious, the supernatural, the startling and bizarre from all lands and all times — I wouldn’t place a single limitation on locale, historical period or race, but I would draw the line at the grave. Even in fiction the dead have a right to rest in peace.” The vote of our readers, to date, is overwhelmingly in favor of a few horror stories in each issue. But those who want cannibalistic and blood-drinking stories (specifically those who endorse Mr. Eddy’s “The Loved Dead” and Mr. Miller’s “The Hermit of Ghost Mountain”) are as few as those who want no horror stories at all. We bow before the decision that has been made by you, the readers; and along with other bizarre and weird tales we shall continue to print horror stories — but they will be clean.""The Hermit of Ghost Mountain" seems to have been a popular topic on The Eyrie, particularly in tandem with "The Loved Dead." Has anyone here read it?
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Post by dem bones on May 18, 2021 6:09:00 GMT
"The Hermit of Ghost Mountain" seems to have been a popular topic on The Eyrie, particularly in tandem with "The Loved Dead." Has anyone here read it? Oh yes! All I can think is that CCT didn't get to see a copy of the March 1924 issue or she'd surely have included The Hermit of Ghost Mountain in the Not At Night's. It's an ideal fit.
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Post by dem bones on May 19, 2021 12:46:00 GMT
Weird Tales, August 1925. Andrew Brosnatch Seabury Quinn - Servants of Satan VI: Maria Schweidler: True Tale of Witchcraft in Germany. Miffed that Maria Schweidler, the Parson's sixteen-year-old daughter, would dare reject his lecherous advances, the Sheriff of Coserow enters into conspiracy with the Chief Huntsman, the Constable and two spiteful old hags to bring about her downfall. Maria is charged with killing two pigs by witchcraft. The girl bravely protests her innocence, but a prolonged torture session in dungeon beneath Pudgia Castle jogs her memory. "Trifle not with us, woman; you know what we mean. Have you lived with the fiend as his mistress? Apply the screws, constable, the witch grows stubborn." "Ah, ah! mercy; mercy! Yes, I have been Satan's mistress. Oh, release me, sirs, release me, forebear the torture. Oh ...." A shudder pulp interlude. Maria is duly condemned to be burnt at the stake, but before that, a gratuitous shudder pulp interlude as the crones get to mutilate her breasts with pincers. By this point you've maybe convinced yourself that there is no way this can end well for our heroine, but you reckon without the audacity of Seabury Quinn! This "factual account" of a seventeenth century German witch trial and its aftermath reads suspiciously like a Gothic romance for good reason — it's a spirited rewrite of Wilhelm Meinhold's 1838 novel, The Amber Witch. B. W. Sliney - The Man Who Laughed: Fearful Was the Mirth of This Criminal and Dreadful the Laughter that Rolled Through the Dark Corridors of the Prison. Ruthless killer Wadson awaiting execution on Death Row, betrayed by wife Nita who has fallen for his slightly less despicable sidekick. A model prisoner, albeit one prone to outbursts of demonic laughter when he thinks nasty thoughts, Wadson requests one last meeting with Nita so he can beg her forgiveness. The sympathetic staff pass on the message. Nita reluctantly agrees to pay him a final visit. Cue ghastly chuckles. Henri De Crouet & Hasan Vokine - The Revenge of Philippe Auguste: A Story of Hatred and Death. Everyone admires Philippe Auguste de Margerac as a "brave, cheerful little invalid." bless him, look as his smiley fanged face and happy twisted useless legs. If only they knew how much he hates the human race and, most of all, his brother Henri, who caused his fall from a tree when they were children. Over several long, painful years of confinement, Philippe has achieved expertise in bomb-making. At last he revenge! The "weirdness" is provided by the novelty elongated yellow fangs with which de Margerac plans to tear out brothers throat before blowing them both to kingdom come. Guy Pain - The Jonah: A Cross-eyed Bosun — Maritime Superstition — and a Murder. The Meandering Margaret's passage to the West Indies is blighted by ill-luck and tragedy. Even the ship's cat tops herself. What can you expect when you have Jim Green, the Jonah of Jonah's, for bosun? 'Arry Bodley, "a rat-faced, ferret-eyed Cockney sailor," who holds a grudge against Green, stirs up resentment until the crew are unanimous; the jinx must die!
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Post by dem bones on May 20, 2021 7:09:13 GMT
Andrew Brosnatch H. Thompson Rich - The Purple Cincture: The Bite of Plague-stricken Spiders Accomplished a Frightful Revenge. As featured - along with Archie Binns' The Last Trip - in CCT's initial Not At Night. Also made the Vault Advent Calendar .... Willis Knapp Jones - The Green Scarab: Peculiar Experience of a Painter and an Egyptian Mummy. An artist's studio stands next door to the museum. As Dr. Sheridan's team unpack a delivery to the Egyptian room on the other side of the wall, Gil Burgess is inspired to begin work on the painting of a beautiful woman. Princess Redet-N-Ptah is evidently not best pleased with the resulting portrait. Not especially remarkable, but I enjoyed it. As with many early 'twenties Weird Tales mummy offerings, story references the "King Tut craze." Robert E. Howard - In the Forest of Villefère: If the Werewolf is Slain as a Man, His Ghost Haunts the Slayer. De Montour of Normandy, carrying important news to an army outpost, takes a wrong turn in a forest of ill-repute. Fortunately he chances upon a masked stranger, Carolus, le Loup, who can show him the right path, prevent him falling into any danger. Howard Elsmere Fuller - Wolfgang Fex, Criminal: A Solemn Pact Between Two Artists Caused One of Them to Become a Murderer. Renè de Flear, tortured artist, considers his paintings the equal of, if not superior to, those of Rembrand, Raphael, Velasquez, Olinick & Co. Unfortunately, everyone in the world remains entirely oblivious to his genius - everyone, that is, save his roommate and fellow legend in his own mind, Wolfgang Fex. Mindful that a prophet is never accepted in his or her lifetime, the pair agree a compact of death. On completion of their next canvasses, the one will murder the other, then take their own life. Goodbye unworthy philistines!
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Post by dem bones on May 21, 2021 12:48:49 GMT
Andrew Brosnatch Harry Harrison Kroll - The Graveyard Skunk: A Mississippi Polecat Tracks Home a Murderer. When Pete Springer, cemetery recluse and miser, is killed for his coin, the mountain folk have no idea how to how to go about finding the culprit. Cutie, the dead man's pet skunk, has no such difficulties. A weird revenge story with a whiff of the supernatural. Read at your peril. Frank Owen - The Lantern-Maker: A Poetic Fantasy, About Old Yin Wen and His Forty-Year love for Taki. They met when she was sixteen. Love at first sight, everything rosy, until the eve of the Feast of Lanterns when a rich trader arrived in Canton with the most gorgeous golden lantern. Taki, being a child of the moon, is drawn to the light. She and the trader disappeared in the crowd, and that is the last Yin Wen saw of his soul mate. He has since devoted his life to crafting a lamp of sufficient beauty to call her back. Adam Hull Shirk - The Bearded Men: A Whiskered Hypnotist Ruled Over a Club of Outcasts from Society. The collapse of the Gotham Trust Company triggers misery, suicide and ruin. A broken man, vice-president Gordon Hunt finds a quiet park bench and places a pistol against his head. A stranger intervenes, offers an alternative. He is 'the Chief,' self-appointed leader of the Club of Bearded Men (and masked women, although "the ladies are merely auxiliary members), persons who, for whatever reason, found it expedient to vanish from the face of the earth. The uniform is a false beard for men (must be worn at all times), a domino for women (ditto). The Chief, a master mesmerist, uses them to commit murder for revenge and profit. Hunt, under the Chief's spell, duly slays his crooked company president. The Chief warns that, from now on he must follow his every order, or he'll turn him over to the police. Esther, a domino girl keen to escape the Chief's clutches, provides the romantic interest. Shock ending (even if I had to look up 'Charley Ross disappearance' for it to make sense). Andrew Brosnatch
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on May 21, 2021 13:34:24 GMT
I know these stories can often sound silly, and probably are, but it seems to me that there is a huge explosion of imaginative ideas here, and some real boundary pushing to come up with new twists on themes.
I posted this in wrong thread originally.
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Post by dem bones on May 22, 2021 12:27:41 GMT
Heartening news for fellow Weird Tales enthusiasts - the Betancourt's plans to reissue facsimiles of all the 1925 issues by the end of the year - two more will be available soon. Andrew Brosnatch W. J. Stamper - The Vulture of Pignon: Tale of Voodoo and the Drunken Fury of a Caco Chief. An outbreak of malaria leaves Thomassique village hopelessly vulnerable to attack from Chief Norde, loathed and feared as "the Vulture of Pignon." In desperation, the Commandant entrusts Corporal Leventez with a message for General Fauche at Hinche. "Half my command unfit for duty with malaria. Norde, the Caco chief reported to be at Cerca-la-Sources. Expect attack at any time. Send quinine and three squads at earliest practicable date." It is, of course, imperative this communique should not fall into enemy hands. How those ghoulish readers who demanded more horror must have loved Lieutenant Stamper! Archie Binns - The Last Trip: The Taxicab Driver Takes a Terrifying Ride to the Cemetery. Long-time bus driver Butler (!) taking the long, dark road to the Woodland memorial ground, his one remaining passenger, a disquieting pale nutjob who insists "My name is Death!"
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Post by dem bones on May 23, 2021 13:07:59 GMT
Andrew Brosnatch Arthur j. Burks - Black Medicine: Complete Novelette of Haitian Voodoo. Regarding Burks' collection of the same title, E. F. Bleiler remarks that those stories with a Caribbean setting "show racial bias to the point of grotesqueness" and such is the case in this macabre thriller. The hero is Chandler, a tedious misanthrope living at the American hotel in Port Au Prince. One night, driven from the hotel by a dance band, he strays into the jungle where he chances upon a voodoo ceremony presided over by Chal 'Papa Lou' David, High priest and rabble-rouser, sworn to driving the whites from the island. Hidden by trees, Chandler witnesses an execution by machete, a cannibal feast, and a phantom reenactment of the blacks' defeat of Napoleon's previously all-conquering army. 'The black medicine' lacks but one essential ingredient before the massacre of American's can begin. Murray Leinster - The Oldest Story in the World: Blood-red Rubies - An Oriental Raja - and a Torture Chamber. A white man masquerading as a priest kills a Hindu queen to steal a Rajah's precious jewels. The murderer is taken captive in Barowar, where the ruler, a man of cruel humour, devises a punishment designed to rob a man of his sanity. Arthur S. Garbett - The Devil's Opera: Infernal Was the Music Whose Inspiration Was Hate. Alsia Freyne, celebrated soprano, quit the industry on her wedding day as husband Ronald Curliss, a politician twenty years her senior, hates all things music. Their marriage is a happy one until Alsia falls under the spell of the "damned diabolical musical hypnotism" of her former lover, Francis Kenworthy, great opera director. It all ends in dead people. Nathaniel Hawthorne - Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment: ( Knickerbocker Magazine, Jan. 1837. As The Fountain of Youth). The kindly and wise Heidegger invites four ghastly oldies of his acquaintance to drink from the wondrous waters of the fountain of youth. Medbourne is a ruined merchant. Colonel Killigrew, a dried up libertine. Gascoigne, disgraced politician. The widow Wycherly, a good time gal gone to seed. The object of the experiment is to see if, with an opportunity to put right past mistakes, they choose to pursue the same ruinous course as before. Predictable outcome, but I adore this story for the guided tour of the Professor's haunted study. Andrew Brosnatch The Eyrie: "The three tales that top the list of popularity in the eight issues of WEIRD TALES that have so far been published by the present regime are When the Green Star Waned, by Nictzin Dyalhis; Whispering Tunnels, by Stephen Bagby; and Out of the Long Ago, by Seabury Quinn." The most popular under Edwin Baird's editorship being The moon-Terror by A. G. Birch. Quinn's The Phantom Farmhouse, and Lovecraft's The Rats in the Walls. Also:
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Post by dem bones on May 24, 2021 8:46:14 GMT
My favorite cover of the bunch. Years ago I saw that a publisher planned to use this as the cover for a collection of Greye La Spina stories, but as far as I know the book never materialized. Wouldn't hurt to see it again. Weird Tales, Sept 1925Andrew Brosnatch W. J. Stamper - Jean Beauce: Haitian Dictator Metes Out a Gruesome Punishment Having deposed and beheaded the ruling power of Cap Haitian, Caracol, the revolutionary leader, cordially invites three men of affairs to his palace to confer on a new constitution. What a noble and democratic gesture on the part of the great man! How magnanimous to overlook their support of his opponent! Clearly his reputation for vengeance and cruelty is a fabrication of his enemies! "During the later and cooler hours of the day it was my custom to rove about the city in search of fragments of information concerning that dark history of crime and blood [preceding the American occupation of Haiti], which have not been, and perhaps never will be, recorded in the pages of his history." It shows, even if, by Stamper's hideous standard, this one is almost restrained, August's The Vulture of Pignon being particularly horrible and highly recommended. Robert S. Carr - The Flying Halfback: Chung Wo-lung accomplished a Spectacular Exit for Tommy Kee. A sane but evil scientist and a star footballer are rivals for the hand & Co. of innocent, beautiful beyond compare, Toy Sing. As Tommy Kee prepares for the big game, Chung Wo-lung gets busy perfecting his anti-gravity device. William Sanford - The Midnight Visitor: A Lively Imagination Sometimes Plays Queer Pranks. Man in bed thinks something has crept in through the door. Rubbish space-filler.
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Post by dem bones on May 24, 2021 19:14:21 GMT
Andrew Brosnatch E.E. Speight - The Blackthorn Gallows: The Figure on the Gibbet Called Martin Hawk to His side. Traditional supernatural horror set in East Devon. To save his own skin, Martin Hawk, killer and poacher, betrayed a naive young accomplice, whose rotting corpse now swings from the gibbet on Blackdown Hill. The dead boys widowed mother cajoles him down to seek revenge. E. Hoffmann Price - The Sultan's Jest: Strange Was the Sultan's Whim, but Stranger the Whim of Amru. The tyrant discovers that Dhivalani, his harem favourite, has taken a secret lover. He contrives an "amusing" punishment for both. Can Amru the scribe somehow spare them the ordeal? Seems torture was well popular with jazz age horror heads. Frank Belknap Long - The Were-Snake: Arthur Fights With the Goddess Ishtar in her Subterranean Retreat. Desperate to impress Miss Beardsley, Arthur, freelance paranormal researcher, defies all warning to investigate the alleged haunting of the temple of Ishtar. Glowing green eyes penetrate the desert night. The beautiful, unspeakably evil Goddess casts her spell. A scream from Miss Beardsley, her parasol imperiled! Charles Hilan Craig - Darkness: Terror Seized This Man When He Found He Could No Longer See. As a boy. Graham Fletcher, unintentionally blinded a horse in one eye. It's furious owner, a gypsy fortune-teller, warned that one day, the same would happen to him.
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Post by dem bones on May 26, 2021 8:26:01 GMT
Andrew Brosnatch Gerald Dean - The Devil Bed: ( An Old Curse Follows Those who Sleep in The Devil Bed. As revived by CCT in the initial Not at Night. Harry Ware, connoisseur of antique furniture, locates a unique 17th century four poster to the hayloft of a New Brunswick farmhouse. Owners are too happy to sell. The bed has an extraordinarily bloody history, many who slept there-in became murderous lunatics. One gent slaughtered a family of nine. Old wives tales, scoffs Ware, and to prove it ... Seabury Quinn - Itself: The Banshee Moved the Tortoise-Shell Comb As a Sign of Death. A night's table-tipping spells disaster for the O'Loughlin family, haunted henceforth by the Banshee's roaming comb. Revived in Weinberg & Co's Tiny Tales of Terror, as is J. U. Giesy's Ashes of Circumstance. Andrew Brosnatch H. L. Maxson - The Ether Ray: Powerful Beam Makes Objects Vanish Into Thin Air. Struggling for inspiration, Richard Conrad, fiction writer, replies to a 'situations vacant' advertisement placed by Professor X. Etheray (a clever pseudonym). The Professor seeks a man prepared to risk his life to test the greatest invention in the history of science! Dire cheat ending. Of the three volumes, the September number is the weakest by some distance.
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