After a worldwide plague breaks civilization, Joaquin Smith and his sister build an empire up the Mississippi Valley. Who would be brave or foolish enough to stand in their way? Who but a young backwoodsman named Hull Tarvish? „Dawn of Flame” was written in the year 1939 by Stanley Grauman Weinbaum. This book is one of the most popular novels of Stanley Grauman Weinbaum, and has been translated into several other languages around the world. After his death, Weinbaum became „science fiction’s first cult author”; „Dawn of Flame” appeared as the title piece of a 1936 memorial story collection, while „The Black Flame” was the lead feature in the January 1939 debut issue of Startling Stories.

When „The Black Flame” was first published in 1939, Stanley G. Weinbaum had already been dead for three years. This novel contains of two short novels: „Dawn of Flame” and „The Black Flame”. Both are very similar stories, the reason for that is that Weinbaum had not released the first one and reworked it into the longer second part. The story itself is a weird SciFi love story set in a very distant future. Mankind had nearly become extinct, but recovers to a good number by the help of scientists who also discover the secret of stopping people from aging and dieing.

This is the first story in which Chulunder Gon takes a leading position, and previously acted only in the company of other Mundi heroes. The story is about a corrupt Indian ruler who is looking for hidden wealth on his land and has formed a background for the curtains of the gods of Manda. „The buried treasures” are in fact oil deposits. The inspirational author had his own interest in oil in Mexico and the presence of oil in Assam, one of the Indian provinces, which Talbot visited in his youth. Mundi describes the acquisition of wealth in the context of an adventure, about which he simultaneously wrote and tried to live in it.

This is another classic of golden-age detective fiction featuring Detective Hamilton Cleek who was introduced in „Cleek: The Man of the Forty Faces” first published in 1913. This super sleuth and master of disguise will bedazzle you once more as he ingeniously solves a new case. Without the logical mind and condescending manners of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Hamilton Cleek worms into your heart through your eyes and via your brain. In this tale, Cleek investigates the sinister disappearance of people and the mysterious appearance of flames at night in the desolate Fens, and his friend Superintendent Narkom of Scotland Yard tries to solve some tricky cases of bank robberies in London. Using disguises, clues, and his brain he solves several mysteries in one.