Armchair Fiction presents extra large editions of classic science fiction double novels with original illustrations. The first novel, David H. Keller’s “The Flying Threat,” is a story of science gone mad. It certainly parallels H. G. Wells’ “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” in that it features a small party of civilized people who are trapped in a far off, danger-filled land and faced with the terrifying threat of a mad scientist and his horrible monstrosities. It was also a most unusual tale for its time (1930) because it featured a lead female character who was—unlike the typical trembling beauties that filled the pages of the pulp magazines of the day—an intelligent, independent, strong-willed woman, unafraid to look adversity, even stark horror, straight in the eye without blinking. But if you’re afraid of bugs (especially big ones!) don’t read this story, because Dr. Keller has a field day slowly nurturing the terror of an army of giant insects that are soon to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting mankind. It is another example of the kind of taut, well-written science-suspense yarns that Dr. Keller was famous for. The second novel is “The Fifth Dimension Tube” by science fiction icon, Murray Leinster. It was an astonishing discovery. Professor Denham had reason to believe that travel to another universe was possible, the kind of travel which men had previously only dreamed of. But soon, by way of the Professor’s remarkable tube apparatus, Tommy Reames and the professor’s daughter, Evelyn Denham, invaded the inimical Fifth-Dimensional world of golden cities and tree-fern jungles and Ragged Men. Inevitably Reames and Denham found their lives in peril in a strange world filled with unimaginable dangers.
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