CODE NAME: The Emperor. Head of a secret network of agents, he
fights evil wherever it may arise. Able to pass unsuspected through any
security or fortification, he has outwitted and out-fought the cleverest and
most deadly enemies. The Emperor’s exploits put those of Doc Savage, The
Shadow, Batman, James Bond, and even those two guys from UNCLE to shame.
Includes four amazing adventures of The Emperor and his able corps of agents
versus international criminals, foreign terrorists, space aliens, and a madman
with the gloves that Thor used to wield Mjolnir, his magic hammer! THE
UNDERGROUND PULP AND COMIC SENSATION! For forty years, Charles Lee Jackson II
has been producing a body of work unprecedented in the annals of pulp magazines
and comics. He has garnered a fanatic body of followers and admirers - but his
work has never been made available to a mass audience before! Begin the
adventure here, with the first volume of stories featuring Jackson's legendary
cliffhanger hero, in his fight against the forces of evil.
The Emperor’s Gambit (Cliffhanger Action Thriller)
By Charles Lee Jackson 11
Dearstalker Editions
ISBN #978-148448715
182 Pages
Price $8.99
Rating 5-Stars
“Rare Humor For Action Novels.”
The Emperor’s Gambit contains four novelettes: The Emperor
Crosses The Deadline; The Emperor In London; The Emperor Runs The Gauntlet; and
The Emperor Takes The Air.
In The Emperor Crosses The Deadline aliens from a far galaxy are
here in flying saucers, and they set communication blocks all over the world.
The Russians still have Morning Star in operation, a nuclear missile facility
that must receive certain broadcasts on a regular basis, or the operators will
assume that Russia has been taken out, and automatically launch a strike
against America. The Emperor and his fighting team must stop the aliens and
resume all radio contact worldwide before it’s too late.
The Emperor In London is the second novelette. While in London The Emperor and his team are
looking for The Steel Skull, who appears to be up to no good. It turns out that
this personage is actually an alien agent planning to poison London’s water
supply. The Emperor joins Gayla Knight, an Enforcer for Continent-Eight (the
Bad Guys), and she leads him into a trap by the invaders. Meanwhile, The
Emperor’s team is following another man, who turns out to be a disguised good
alien from another planet who are after the Thuleans (Bad Aliens). Naturally,
it ends well, and the evil aliens are defeated once again.
In The
Emperor Runs The Gauntlet we get away from aliens for a while. Supposedly, the
Museum of Natural History holds the Mjolnir, the Gloves of Thor, which contains
great magic powers, as it controlled Thor’s mighty Hammer. Singh McGurk Roberts
hires Howard Medicle Group – a murder-for-hire organization – to kill The
Emperor before he puts his own plans into operation. While assassins try to
kill The Emperor, Singh steals the Gloves of Thor and kills a professor that
did him wrong. But now The Emperor is onto him, and the final battle is pretty
equal, since the magic of The Emperor must go up against the magic of Mjolnir.
In the
final story, The Emperor Takes The Air, a missile crashes in the water around
San Francisco and The Emperor first thinks it has something to do with
Thuleans, but breaking into one of their hideouts he discovers they’re not
involved. Figuring the trajectory, he and Shanghai Lil follow the trail to
Black Rock, Nevada, where they find a missile silo and a team plotting to
discredit America with crashes of missiles in large cities, killing thousands
of people. Naturally, they weren’t expecting The Emperor to discover them.
Done like the old Saturday Matinee cliffhangers, most chapters
end with someone in dire threats of bodily harm. A lot of humor, and the best I
can describe it is similar to Underdog or Crusader Rabbit. The author doesn’t
want us to take these stories seriously. Remember Crusader Rabbit, when he
would get in trouble and need to escape? We had a plastic sheet we placed over
the TV screen, and would draw a bridge, or rope, or whatever CR needed to
escape. Well, that’s kind of like what we have here. The Emperor has all these
abilities, which include a little magic. For instance, hanging onto one of the
flying saucers in the first story, an alien breaks part of the ship he’s
holding onto, and The Emperor falls – from above the clouds, to land safely on
the ground. He’s also impervious to deadly ray guns and bullets, and everything
else. So maybe we shouldn’t be so serious about our pulp and comic book heroes,
either. A lot of fun, if you can
Tom Johnson
Author of Worlds of Tomorrow
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