effective

In „Black Wind Blowing”, Howard lays it on so thick I half suspected he was trying to do a spoof on the genre. But then, his normal storytelling was always full of bizarre images, hyperactive violence and heavy use of adjectives so this story is probably just an extreme example. It helps too, that „Black Wind Blowing” has enough wild premises to build at least two or three effective horror stories...

It is 1914, but war has not yet broken out. Olivia Dunbar, a young English woman, is working in Germany as a private secretary. She obtains secret military information, and becomes entangled in a British secret agent operation, and encounters the terrifying Dr. Grundt, head of German counter-intelligence: the „crouching beast” of the title. „The Crouching Beast” by Valentine Williams is an example...

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,...

„Terror Keep” is a 1927 Edgar Wallace thriller featuring perhaps the most memorable of all Wallace’s heroes, Mr. J. G. Reeder. Reeder is at pains to point out that he is not a detective, which is technically true. He is not a policeman, and has no power to arrest suspects. He works as an investigator of banking crime, particularly forgery. He is nonetheless the terror of the criminal classes. This...