Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Golden Hell

A blind obsession. A driving ambition. A relentless, unrestrained, single-minded pursuit of a shiny metal. These are the symptoms of a condition known as gold fever, and, like Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, American mining engineer Captain Humbert Reynolds has got it bad. Possible side effects include: temporary insanity, a propensity for violence, and death.
The search for gold has taken Reynolds from the ruins of the Yucatan to the mountains of Ecuador to the wilderness of northern Canada. Now, his search for a yellow brick bonanza has brought him halfway around the world, to the Gobi desert.
But the lure of the precious metal is about to lead Reynolds into a Golden Hell, as he plunges into an inferno—a mountain of horrors run by an unspeakably evil gang. And if he doesn’t find a way out, a path to redemption, he may find that instead of snatching the ultimate prize he will have to pay the ultimate price.
Also includes the adventure, Pearl Pirate, a story of betrayal and deceit in which an American captain loses his ship to a money-lender, and the only way to get it back is to outfight and outfox a ruthless pirate and bring home a fortune in black pearls.


Golden Hell (Adventure)
By L. Ron Hubbard
ISBN #978-1593132738
Price $9.95
144 Pages
Rating 5-Stars

“Pulp Adventure At Its Best”

GOLDEN HELL originally published in  the September 1936 issue of THRILLING ADVENTURE: This book actually contains two novelettes, the title story and PEARL PIRATE. In GOLDEN HELL, mining engineer Humbert Reynolds hears of gold in the Gobi. With his guide, Yang T’ang and a guard of soldiers, he heads into the Gobi with gold fever, and literally encounters Hell. Captured by a Mongol tribe they are taken to a Monk hideaway in the mountains where the monks are forging gold deep within the belly of a mountain, and molten metal flows like a burning pool in hell. There, he and his men are chained like slaves to dig the gold in the stifling heat of hell.

As wild as GOLDEN HELL is, PEARL PIRATE (May 1935 THRILLING ADVENTURES) was a fight from beginning to end. There are three forces against each other. The big American, Smoke Engel, wants his boat, the Witch, out of hock with the evil Chinaman, Chan Tso-lan. Meanwhile, Joe Herrero, the Pearl Pirate, steals black pearls from Chan. The Chinaman offers Smoke ten thousand dollars and his boat, if he will bring back the pearls. From there it’s nothing but a fierce battle between Smoke, Herrero, and their men, until the final accounting with the Chinaman, who has plans on cheating everyone in the deal. The sharks and barracuda have a feast in this bloody novelette, but it was all action. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of GUNS OF THE BLACK GHOST

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