John Russell Fearn

Ralf Dale of the Interplanetary Police could scarcely believe it when his girlfriend confessed, “Today, Ralph, I nearly murdered Cranfell, the chief cashier of my department!.”<P> Originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1945, «Interlink» is a fast-paced science fiction adventure by one of the most prolific and popular British authors of the era.

At the height of a thunderstorm, Chris Danvers, amateur TV broadcaster, witnesses on his screen the vision of a gorgeously beautiful woman–a woman who doesn&apos;t speak English or any known foreign language. When he manages to reach her again, he makes an extraordinary discovery: Marvia inhabits a completely different plane of existence. She also possesses a marvelous singing voice spanning seven octaves. When Chris tries to exploit her talents, he finds himself prosecuted as a charlatan. And...

Jeffrey Collins’s fate was sealed when he stopped his car to help a man who appeared to be an injured motorcyclist. When the injured man vanished before his eyes, Collins turned to a scientist, Dr. Whittaker, to make sense of the mystery. But when Whittaker was found dead, a victim of poisoning, Collins was accused of his murder. The evidence against him was damning. Where had he been during the period when Dr. Whittaker had died? Had he not quarrelled with him, and had they not both stood to...

When drifter Terry Carlton encounters the little town of Verdure in Arizona, he&apos;s only seeking some hospitality and shelter for the night, before moving on. But what he learns from his hosts, old man Marchland and his daughter Hilda, piques his curiosity. <P> Their home, like all the others in town, is boarded up at night; the entire community is living in fear of four ghostly horsemen, who ride only at night. Refusing to share the terrified townsfolk&apos;s fear of the...

Gordon Fryer, a young, unemployed engineer, finds a post as a scientific guinea pig and assistant to an elderly scientist, Dr. Royd. But the result of Royd’s experiment predicts the exact hour and day of Gordon&apos;s death–a mere thirteen years hence–with a series of photographs of the future. Fryer makes a deadly enemy of Royd’s butler, Blessington, who targets him with poison-pen letters, but when his campaign culminates in attempted murder, Blessington is imprisoned. Fryer and his new wife...

Richard Shaw thinks he&apos;s been blessed when he and his new bride Beryl survive a car smash. Both make rapid recoveries from their injuries, both have apparently fully recovered. But Beryl is strangely changed. As the doctor tells Richard: “As far as we can tell medically, she is normal again, except for one thing–the way she looks at you. I don’t think I have ever seen such a strange light in the eyes of a woman before!” Despite Beryl’s odd, even sinister, new mental outlook, Richard buys an...

When Milly Morton, confidential secretary to industrialist Mortimer Bland, deliberately smashes several astronomical plates created by Anton Drew, she does more than express her pique against Bland&apos;s Chief Scientist. She also destroys irreplaceable data that might have enabled Drew to convince a skeptical world that it needs to prepare for the coming cosmic disaster. Without proof, no government official takes Drew&apos;s theories seriously. And so the world continues on its way, living in...

Mankind was being assailed by a disease that made the Bubonic Plague seem insignificant. People were dying by the thousands, especially in America and in England. They would choke, strangle to death, and then, horribly, burst apart as if blown up by gas! And the horror had been unwittingly caused by one man, Doctor Blair, who had, ironically, tried to invent something that would benefit mankind by eliminating all disease! Instead, the results of his experiment led to the world facing total...

Voyaging into a sector of interstellar space that is plunged into total darkness with an absolute absence of any light, the four Cosmic Crusaders encounter their most powerful and sinister enemy yet–an alien mastermind who is regarded as a God by the race he has created. This scientist has altered the nature of space itself, so that it no longer conducts light, forcing the slaves he&apos;s created to evolve without eyes, and to develop extrasensory perception. Not content with shaping the...

Maria Black, the woman&apos;s school headmistress who doubles as a detective, is invited to attend the engagement celebrations of an ex-pupil of her college. There she finds herself involved in the mysterious suicide of the prospective bridegroom, Keith Robinson. All the circumstances–death by hanging in a locked cellar–support the idea that Keith took his own life. The coroner, too, is satisfied that such was the case–but certain peculiar factors of the death lead «Black Maria» to think...

Tarnec Brodix, super-mathematician from an external cosmos, accidentally destroys his universe. The destruction begins to spread into our own cosmos in the form of a Dark Tide of Absolute Nothingness, destroying all light and heat. Stars, nebulae, galaxies–all are disappearing before the relentless advance of a mathematical fault in space-time. Unable to save himself, Brodix transfers his knowledge into the one mind in the Earth universe receptive enough to receive it: that of Sefian, the son of...

After their whirlwind marriage and honeymoon, Jane and Dick went to their new home in rural England…a gloomy place rumored to be haunted. A creepy house, strange neighbors, and newlyweds – quite a mix! A classic tale by John Russell Fearn, author of the Black Maria series!

When Ralph Black, chain store magnate, is found shot by his own gun in his locked library in his palatial home, the New York Police Department pronounces it suicide. However, his family members believe he was murdered. His sister in England, Maria Black, M.A., Headmistress of a girls&apos; school, wants to discover the truth. She travels to America, and with her penchant for solving crimes, sets to work to trace the mysterious plot against Ralph. Can she unmask the amazing truth about her...

BEFORE EARTH CAME launches a new series collecting the early pioneering pulp magazine novelettes of John Russell Fearn, with the first-ever reprinting of «Before Earth Came» and «Subconscious.»<P> Both stories abound with unbridled imagination and a sense of wonder, examples of the pioneering stories being written in SF more than 80 years ago.<P> In «Before Earth Came,» Fearn’s storyline of how alien scientists, facing the imminent utter destruction of their planet, seek to...

Anjani returns! in this direct sequel to The Gold of Akada, Rita Perrivale, widow of an English explorer, goes back to the coast of West Africa. Having inherited her husband’s fortune, she spares no expense on this new venture to loot the legendary lost city of Akada of its treasures. But Rita had only survived the disastrous first expedition because of the help of Anjani, a white man of immense strength and stature who had been brought up in the jungle by a native tribe. Now Rita hopes to be...

Gyron de London, most powerful–and most hated–industrialist of the year 2190, is warned by a mysterious letter that his doom is due on the 30th March, three weeks hence. Further anonymous letters repeat the message. The frightened tycoon takes every precaution, even to sealing himself in a steel, radiation-proof cube surrounded by armed guards – but death overtakes him on the specified day, exactly as forecast! <P> Since no one had entered the cube after the industrialist was seen to...

When financier Emerson Drew&apos;s hired killer pushes scientist-inventor Rajek Quinton down an abandoned mineshaft, Drew and his conspirators believe that the way&apos;s clear to exploit Quinton&apos;s amazing new invention, which will make them millions. But he reckons without Larry Clark of the C.I.D.–plus Quinton’s uncanny scientific genius. The police detective, aided by Drew&apos;s secretary Joyce Sutton, forges a chain of evidence to send Drew and his cohorts to their doom. But who is...

Something is wrong in England. In and around the London area, people are suddenly becoming bad-tempered, with a rapid increase in crime and murder, and a clear decline in self-respect. Linked to this strange behavior is an excavation site, now a mighty smoking crater emitting clouds of noxious gas that appear to be causing the sudden change in human behavior. And then, from within the vast fissure below the crater, there emerge the hideous survivals of a lost age of monster dinosaurs. It&apos;s...

Dr. Brutus Lloyd is no more than four feet ten inches tall, an amazingly gnome-like man. He&apos;s not a dwarf, simply vest-pocket size. His head has a brow like a baby cliff, capped by a tuft of jet-black hair that curled down the immense forehead. His face, though overbalanced by the brow, is powerful for all its smallness. The most surprising thing about him is his deep bass voice. A brilliant scientist and criminologist, his unorthodox methods in combating criminals sometimes causes...