Adventure House

Outlaw Brazos races to take a hit job from Whisper Monahan. But things soon take a supernatural spin when Brazos acquires a second shadow after killing a witch doctor, who with his last breath, swears a deadly curse upon his soul.

Stories from the Golden Age


Wrongfully imprisoned on Devil's Island, Captain Spar dreams of killing the one man who contrived his capture on that island hell. When he daringly escapes from the penal colony, Spar lands on the island of Martinique, hot on the trail of his nemesis.

But Spar quickly finds himself ensnared by the deadly schemes of a brutal and cold-blooded native known only as Chacktar while attempting to discover the identity of his betrayer. He is forced to sail the yacht Venture through a vicious storm toward the rocky shores of Hurricane Hill, an island whose surrounding waters are the most treacherous in the Caribbean.

It is an assignment Captain Spar cannot refuse, one where he must try to save not only himself but an entire boatload of innocents that includes one very alluring young woman.

Down-on-his-luck tramp Doughface Jack has been shot while trying to escape from a cop and a train brakeman—causing him to fall from the train and crush his skull. A local doctor performs emergency surgery to save Doughface's life, patching up and stitching together the two halves of his brain and then sealing the cranium with a silver bowl.

While Doughface miraculously survives, he also acquires phenomenal mental powers: he can instantaneously heal or kill, or make the old young. Terrified of his newfound abilities, Doughface flees the university where he was being kept for examination, only to cross paths with a vengeful and beautiful woman bound to reach the ultimate seat of power—using Jack to destroy anything that gets in her way!

Experience the Stories from the Golden age, where adventure comes to life!

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Tramp

“For a man that’s been through what happened to you, I’d say you looked marvelous,” smiled Miss Finch. That was not exactly true. Doughface had always been as fat as a butterball and his complexion had never been anything but pasty white. The bluish growth of beard did not help.

“What’s the idea?” said Doughface, glancing around again.

“You mean where are you?” said Miss Finch. “Doctor Pellman saw you get hurt and brought you here. He operated.”

“Geez,” said Doughface, alarmed, “I ain’t got no lucre. Them things cost the bucks!”

“Never mind,” said Miss Finch. “The doctor hasn’t collected a bill for years and he doesn’t even try anymore. You can thank him for your life.”

“Huh,” said Doughface, “he must be a right guy.”

“He’s a wonderful fellow, if that’s what you mean,” said Miss Finch.

“Y’mean I’d be dead if it wasn’t fer him, huh?”

“That’s it.”

“Geez . . . And he don’t want no lucre for it?”

“No,” replied Miss Finch. “Now you be quiet and I’ll go get you something to eat.”

“Eat?”

“Yes. Anything you want in particular?”

Doughface shut his eyes and then gathered courage to take the plunge. “How about chicken and ice cream?”

“All right,” said Miss Finch.

Doughface blinked. He suspected this wasn’t Earth after all. If it wasn’t for that mole this girl would look just like . . . Huh! He gaped at her in astonishment.

“What’s the matter?” said Miss Finch.

“That . . . uh . . . y’had a mole on yer chin and it ain’t there no more!”

Her hand flew to the spot. She stepped to a mirror at the head of the bed and stared at herself. “Why . . . why, that’s so. It’s gone!”

Through it all the man on one side had not moved and neither had the girl practically hidden in bandages.

Doughface did not long concentrate on the vanishing mole. “What burg is this?”

“Centerville,” said Miss Finch in a preoccupied fashion, hand to chin.

“Then this is all the hospital there is, huh?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the matter with these ginks?” said Doughface nodding his head to right and left.

“That’s Tom Johnson,” said Miss Finch. “He’s dying of cancer and the doctor is going to operate later in the day. And this is Jenny Stevens. She was in an accident last night—poor thing. You had better be very quiet. They’re very sick.”

“Jake with me,” said Doughface. “You mean it about that chicken and ice cream?”

Miss Finch smiled and went out.

Doughface turned over and regarded the man for some time. The fellow was barely conscious and at long last he turned his head.

“How ya feel, pal?” said Doughface.

The man’s lips moved but no sound came forth.

“Hard lines,” said Doughface sympathetically.

The man moved his lips again and this time he spoke. “Heart’s almost gone. But I hope Doc Pellman’s gonna fix it. I know I wasn’t none too good but . . .”

“He saved my life,” said Doughface. “I guess he’s a right guy.”

“Shore is,” said the man, strongly. “He brung my four children into the world. Ain’t nobody hereabouts that’ll say nothin’ agin Doc Pellman.”

He stirred restlessly and looked long at Doughface. Slowly he raised himself up on an elbow and further regarded the tramp.

Unexpectedly Tom Johnson said, “You got a cigarette, cap’n?”

“Me? Naw. They was some snipes in me clothes but I don’t see nothin’ around now.”

Johnson raised himself higher and glanced around the room. An ashtray was under the window and he could see the butts in it. He swung down his feet and stretched. He shuffled across the floor and fished out a butt. He found some matches and brought the tray back to Doughface.

Again Johnson stretched and then took a luxurious puff. “Ain’t enough air in here,” he said, crossing to the window and throwing it open. He stood in the chill blast, again stretching.

“My goodness but I feels good,” said Johnson.

Doughface was disappointed a little, but grinning just the same. “Yeah, I put on an act like that plenty of times. What’d you want, some free meals?”

“Ac’?” blinked Johnson. “Say, Doc Pellman was wrong. He said I was gonna die maybe. But I ain’t gonna die. I feels like I could lift this buildin’ sky-high.”

Doughface grinned knowingly. The girl in the other cot stirred a bit and Doughface turned to grin at her. “Whatcha know about that, sister? Tom here pullin’ a fake to squeeze a free handout from a right guy like this Pellman.”

The girl turned her head painfully to look at Doughface. Her voice was very faint. “What?”

“I said Tom was tryin’ to gyp the old man. But what the deuce. I done it myself lots of times. What was you doin’? Neckin’ party or one arm drivin’ or somethin’?”

The girl stirred. “Drivin’?” Until that moment she had not realized where she was. She started to put her arm down and found that it was in a cast. The weight of bandages on her face was suddenly smothering to her and she pried them away from her mouth and nose.

“How long have I been here?” she queried.

“The nurse said since last night,” said Doughface. “She claimed you was on a wild party. . . .”

The girl sat up straight. “I was not! The other man was at fault. He was on the wrong side of the road! Was Bob hurt?”

“Who’s Bob?” said Doughface.

The girl looked wildly around her to make sure Bob wasn’t there.

Miss Finch came in at that moment with a tray for Doughface—chicken, ice cream and all. She saw Johnson standing by the window in his nightshirt and gave a gasp of horror.

“Get in bed!” cried Miss Finch. “You’re due to be operated on in an hour!” She turned and saw the girl sitting up. “For heaven’s sake! Lie down! You’ve got a compound fracture and your face . . . Jenny Stevens! What have you been doing to your bandages?”

The girl pulled at the gauze so that she could see better and Miss Finch stopped dead.

The nurse managed to recover her wits. She advanced on Jenny and moved the gauze again.

“But it can’t be!” cried the nurse. “That eye was out! There was an inch splinter of glass in it! But . . . but maybe it was the other eye.” She lifted the other bandage and a healthy blue orb blinked at her in a puzzled way. “I must have been mistaken. . . .” said Miss Finch shakily. “But . . . but no. I wasn’t! I held your eye open while he took the glass out. He said you couldn’t ever see again.”

On the trail of dope runners on the high seas, Coast Guard CPO Johnny Trescott receives an SOS from a transport plane that's crashed and sinking. With lives at stake, Johnny must cut off his pursuit and rescue the downed plane.

Unfortunately, the dope-smuggling pirate he's chasing hears the same alarm, and greets Johnny and his crew at the crash scene with something far more than they bargained for.

Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: Galaxy Press (June 21, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1592123279
ISBN-13: 978-1592123278
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches

Captain Gordon is hired to fly a team of American anthropologists to an arid mountain region now part of Pakistan bordering the Arabian Sea. All goes well until an ancient map is discovered in an old pottery jar, revealing the site of a vast treasure that Alexander the Great was bringing to Greece from his conquest of India. More than 10,000 of Alexander's soldiers and camp followers lay buried in the high desert plains along with the loot of India--hidden in a tomb never to be reclaimed.
With the map's discovery, all academic pretense is dropped. Now Gordon finds himself caught in the middle of the expedition where murder replaces scholarship as the best method to uncover the valuable hoard.
ALSO INCLUDES THE ADVENTURE STORIES "PRICE OF A HAT" AND "STARCH AND STRIPES"

Paperback: 136 pages
Publisher: Galaxy Press (June 21, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 159212335X
ISBN-13: 978-1592123353
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches

Once there had been a single government of Earth controlled by the western races, but the long-oppressed people of Asia finally struck back with a "cohesion projector." In an instant, the device established a solid, invisible wall of space--creating a dividing line between the superpowers, with the Asiatic Federation inside and the United Continents outside.

Both powers are tenuously perched on the brink of war until George Marquis Lorrilard comes along. A sometime lieutenant of the pitiful handful of space guards known as the United Continents Space Navy, he's used the experience to become a space exploiter. Far less driven by altruism than by the ferocious thirst and hunger of greed, Lorrilard sets a course to change forever the fate of Earth and the stars.

ALSO INCLUDES THE SCIENCE FICTION STORIES "FINAL ENEMY" AND "THE AUTOMAGIC HORSE"

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Galaxy Press (June 20, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592123694
• ISBN-13: 978-1592123698

China's war ace, a fighter pilot nicknamed "The Falcon Killer (Tzun Kai)," is actually Bill Gaylord, raised in Peking by his American parents. Gaylord lost both of them as a child during the violent Boxer uprising and then saw his foster family slaughtered in wartime. With a past that's hardened his soul and given him nerves of steel, Gaylord has used his resolve to down more Japanese aircraft than can be counted.


When he's not hunting down enemy planes, intrigue constantly follows him--stars of Tzun's rogues gallery include an agent provocateur and a despotic Chinese warlord. Soon enough, events pit Gaylord against a Japanese spy who has caused untold trouble for the Chinese. Gaylord must somehow find and defeat him or risk losing an ancient Chinese kingdom to the land of the rising sun.

Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Galaxy Press (June 21, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1592123139
ISBN-13: 978-1592123131

American David Duane long ago gave up his dream of being a professional artist. Instead, there's something else he's good at, something that countries will pay good money for his services as an ace fighter pilot on sale to any country whose business is war, regardless of its politics. Duane's cold-edged neutrality takes him to Finland combating Russian Communists bent on destroying a supply base. After leading multiple attacks against the Russians and pushing them further and further back, his luck runs out when his plane is shot down. Instead of crashing in flames, Duane finds himself in an elusive netherworld a mystery-enshrouded city of luxury and golden minarets. There, Duane discovers his true destiny, one that he half-remembers but must struggle to reject in order to save the woman he loves a woman who happens to be an officer . . . in the Russian ranks.

Striking gold, Tim Beckdolt is a man on the brink of a new life until a killer forces him at gunpoint to mine it jumping his claim. Tim manages to escape, but soon finds himself being pursued like an animal in a bloodthirsty manhunt through vicious terrain.

Working deep undercover to break up a purported drug ring operating at Shreve's Mammoth Carnival, US narcotics agent Bob Clark discovers first one and then another headless body.

Others believe the gruesome murders are solved after four tribal headhunters working for the show suddenly disappear, but Clark suspects someone else is the real killer. When he finds himself seized by the very same headhunters, Clark sincerely hopes his hunch is right, since the point of a very sharp knife is aimed at his neck!

ALSO INCLUDES THE MYSTERY STORY "THE DEATH FLYER"

Speed Kyle's company builds the best planes around, but now he's over-extended and needs a quick infusion of cash to save it. His fate rests on the aviation skills of Cal Bradley, daredevil racer and test pilot, whom he asks to fly for him at the upcoming National Air Meet.

The prize? Awarding of lucrative contracts for plane construction and international mail delivery. But what the duo is unprepared for are the kinds of high-risk stakes involved when an unscrupulous competitor enters the race determined to do anything to win. Suddenly sabotage and one beautiful dame may spell ruin as the planes prepare to take flight.

American engineer Dan Courtney is surveying the route of the Sudan Railway in Africa, linking the Uganda Railway with the Anglo-Egyptian Railroad—a project that seems doomed to fail.

When he finds that a young American woman has been kidnapped by the most feared tribe on the continent, the Dinkas, it lands him in an action-swept, life-or-death confrontation to save the girl. The battle with the Dinkas will determine not only the fate of the railway system, but reveal the identity of a killer stalking the girl.

"Cattle King for a Day," originally published in "Western" magazine March, 1937 tells of Chinook Shannon who comes to Montana from Arizona after hearing his grandfather has died unexpectedly and has left him the family's Slash S cattle ranch.  Chinook has always wanted to be a cattle king and arrives in Montana ready to run the ranch.  The only problem is that the ranch will be foreclosed on in 24 hours.  While it may only be one day, as it seems, Chinook is ready to run what he can.  As it turns out a mining company using cyanide mining methods has killed off the cattle and not much is left, however, Chinook finds that all things aren't right in the area and that his grandfather's death was caused by a murder.   Chinook has 24 hours to find out who murdered his grandfather and save his family's ranch.  Be ready for double and triple crosses as Hubbard weaves the tale with the expected twists and turns that are always found in his stories.

"Come and Get It," originally published in "Western" magazine October, 1938, finds another man getting rooked out of his inheritance when he comes from "out East" to inherit his father's Wyoming land.  This time however the hero learns nothing is left of the land and takes on a job as a cook to go undercover to find his father's murderer.  The real twist in this story which made me smile at the end of the book was the identity of the inheritor.  

"The Trail of the Red Diamonds," originally published in "Thrilling Adventure" magazine January, 1935 and is a story of betrayal, espionage, death and adventure.  This story was originally written under the pseudonym of Lt. Jonathan Daly, who by chance, but more likely by design, is the main character in the story.  This story mixes in a lot of reality in that the authenticity comes from Hubbard's many experiences in China.  

Lt. Daly translates an original manuscript of Marco Polo's travels  and discovers that Kublai Khan was buried with some rare red diamonds.  The diamonds were to light the Kahn's way to heaven.  Lt. Daly sets out to follow Marco Polo's directions to find the red diamonds.  Along the way are double crosses, death and deception.  At what cost to Daly is the trail to these diamonds?  Untold riches sound good but when the Chinese army and renegades want those riches for themselves, Daly has some competition.

"The Hurricane's Roar," originally published in  "Thrilling Adventure" magazine April, 1939 is another story of betrayal, espionage, death and adventure.  Hubbard's second story about the man the Chinese call “Feng-Feng” or “Wind-Gone-Mad" the true interpretation for the Chinese slange for hurricane, actually pilot-adventurer Jim Dahlgren—and a conspiracy to incite a provincial war.  "Wind-gone mad" plays both sides of a provincial war against each other to have them discover they have already been played against each other, along the same lines he stops a war by creating a war between the provinces.  As you can tell this story is full of twists and turns and double crosses that only L. Ron Hubbard does so well.

A Matter of Matter Paperback 

Meet Chuck Lambert, who, though not exactly a fool, is guilty of letting his imagination get the best of his wits. That's because our young, naive Lambert wants his own planet. But rather than purchase one legally from the Interior Department of the Outer Galactic Control, he soon succumbs to the flashy advertising of an unsavory galactic swindler named Madman Murphy—the purported King of Planetary Realtors.

 

What Madman is the king of, is selling the unwary a planet that isn't quite right, a planet where one can't sit down because there's something the matter with its matter. And that's exactly what becomes the matter for our unlucky voyager, after Chuck toils for eleven grueling years to scrape together enough money to finally buy a planet of his own.

 

ALSO INCLUDES THE SCIENCE FICTION STORIES "THE CONROY DIARY," "THE PLANET MAKERS" AND "THE OBSOLETE WEAPON"

Destiny's Drum Paperback When former captain of this army and that, Phil Sheridan, lands on the shore of the forgotten Indonesian island of Kamling—jewel of the Banda Sea—he's captured instead of welcomed by warriors of a primitive and bloodthirsty tribe. Marched to the natives' camp, he meets Jose Emanuel Batista—one-time slave trafficker, long-time murderer, and now self-appointed tyrant.

Using his smooth-talking tongue and shooting skills to escape, Sheridan finds temporary shelter at the lodgings of a miner and his beautiful daughter. With limited arms and supplies to hold off Batista and his men, Sheridan must take a desperate chance and journey ever deeper into the jungle. His plan? Enlist the help of headhunters who may be more interested in his head than in driving out Batista's regime and ending its tyrannical reign

Sea Fangs

Paperback

Sailor Bob Sherman has his hands full trying to save the ocean yacht Bonito from capsizing in hurricane waters off Venezuela's coast, no thanks to the know-it-all attitude and incompetence of the vessel's captain. Sherman's rugged good looks and seafaring skills at least bring him the attentions of Phyllis Marmion, a raven-haired beauty and daughter of the yacht's owner.

Unfortunately, Sherman's also the bitter enemy of the girl's father who, with the support of corrupt officials, had stripped him of a highly profitable drilling business and taken his land years before.

More's at stake than oil fields when the ship is attacked by modern pirates and are all taken captive. Soon Sherman, crew and passengers find themselves in a dungeon jail on an uncharted island known locally as the Island of Death a place where no one escapes, and Sherman's futile efforts have marked him for an early death.

Itauk the Madman has spread death to the Yukon, throwing the bodies of his victims to his sled team of twelve wolves. Tracking him down are Canadian Mountie Tommy McKenna and his partner Simmons. But when the pair separate to hunt for food, Itauk attacks Simmons and lets his wolves make an unmentionable feast that Tommy later discovers on his return to camp.

Enraged, Tommy follows the maniac's trail to a village and en route he meets an enchanting Eskimo woman named Kaja. Of course, the route's a trap set by Itauk, and the only one who can save Tommy is Kaja-- engaged to be wed to the ruthless killer, who plans to serve the Mountie as the next meal for his personal wolf pack.

An American mining engineer, Captain Humbert Reynolds, has gold fever an elusive ailment that cloaks rational thought and drives men across endless plains and daunting mountain peaks to seek their quarry.

Ignoring all warnings and signs of treachery, Reynolds travels to the barren expanses of the Gobi Desert in search of the glittery gold. Captured by bandits and thrown to an enclave of Machiavellian monks nestled deep inside a cavernous mountain, Reynolds finds a scene that resembles the horrors of Dante's hell. And though he does find his much-desired gold, Reynolds also discovers that the price he has to pay for it just may lead to his doom.

ALSO INCLUDES THE ADVENTURE STORY "PEARL PIRATE"