THE THAMES VALLEY CATASTROPHE (1884) – Written by Grant Allen. The story is presented in the form of a memoir about the destruction of London as seen from “the futuristic” 20th Century.
“Back” in 1884 a Londoner familiar with lava eruptions and flows that happened in the American West in the past tries – in what would become a trope of later disaster movies – to warn the authorities that danger lurks. Needless to say his warnings go unheeded and lava erupts in the Thames Valley. Continue reading
ASTONISHING TALES Vol 1 #25 (Aug 1974) 
THE HERO: Space traveling anti-hero Smith was created by the female writer C.L. Moore in the 1930s. Four decades before Han Solo, Northwest Smith was a ruthless swashbuckling smuggler, thief and all-around mercenary. Smith’s less than sterling character made him a refreshing change from the usually wholesome pulp heroes of the time. 
SHAMBLEAU (1933) – While trying to lie low between smuggling runs, Northwest Smith stays in New Chicago, a dangerous Martian hotel with a deadly clientelle. Walking the nighttime streets, he saves an eerily seductive woman from a mob who want her dead for being one of the sinister race called the Shambleau. Can Yarol save Smith from himself as the Shambleau lures him into deeper and madder indulgences? Click 
RED NAILS – I always like to emphasize that – despite the way Marvel Comics’ 1970s and 1980s Conan stories kept the character’s name alive and introduced new generations to him – the Cimmerian was not a mere comic book figure. Iconic author Robert E. Howard introduced Conan on the printed page in his 1930s stories featuring the character. 
I. This first installment introduces readers to a blonde female pirate – Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. She is the only female pirate among them and is as notoriously deadly as the others. NOTE: Yes, this is the character that Sandahl Bergman played in the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film. That movie made her a standard thief instead of a pirate and – sadly – gave her the “ghostly return” scene that actually belonged to Conan’s true love Belit (Bay-LEET) from 
THE QUEER SIDE OF THINGS (1890s) – Written by James Frank Sullivan. Straight from the Gay Nineties, it’s a selection of Sullivan’s contributions to the Strand magazine’s short fiction column The Queer Side of Things. 
DEFENDERS Vol 1 #12 (February 1974)
Dr Strange, Hulk and Valkyrie are the only Defenders available who can be rallied to save the world from Xemnu. (I’d have thrown in Clea, too, myself.) Our heroes battle the alien, who is defeated and again seems to be destroyed in the explosion of a spaceship he made the enthralled citizens of Plucketville construct for him. 
GULLIVAR JONES ON MARS aka Lt. Gullivar Jones – His Vacation and various other titles and spellings, was published in 1905 and is one VERY odd piece of work. The author was Edwin L. Arnold, whose ineptitude made this novel very unfulfilling as he defeated his storyline at every turn. Before I get into this third and final part of my review of Gullivar Jones on Mars the links to the first two parts are below: 
MORNING ON THE ISLE OF BEASTS – We pick up the morning after our hero, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Gullivar Jones, survived the night on the Isle of Beasts – my name for the place, since Edwin couldn’t be bothered to provide names for places or characters much of the time. 
This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog looks at Marvel’s 1973 combination of its licensed War of the Worlds rights with its original IP Killraven (1973-1976). It was similar to how Marvel combined their licensed Fu Manchu rights with 
WAR OF THE WORLDS – Jonathan Raven, rechristened Killraven in the gladiatorial circuit of Earth’s alien conquerors of the “future,” leads a group of Freemen in an attempt to retake the planet. CLICK 
THE WARLORD STRIKES – On the run after the destruction and genocide of their Staten Island rebel colony, Killraven and his Freemen run afoul of the Warlord, a human quisling who has wanted revenge against the rebel leader ever since he escaped from the gladiatorial pens. CLICK 
A VOYAGE TO THE WORLD IN THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH (1755) – This intriguing work was published in London anonymously and no author has yet been decisively identified. The novel’s narrator – who remains as anonymous as the book’s author – parties away his inheritance and then ships out for Italy. 
AVENGERS Vol 1 #115 (September 1973)
Synopsis: The Avengers fly in a Quin-Jet to Garrett Castle in England to check up on their British member the Black Knight (Dane Whitman). He has been out of touch for an alarmingly long time. 
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