Forbidden Gold

The short novel FORBIDDEN GOLD originally appeared in the October 1935 issue of FIVE-NOVELS MONTHLY, one of L. Ron Hubbard's regular contributions to that adventure fiction pulp. Hubbard must have liked the name Kurt Reid, because that's what the protagonist of this yarn is called, and it's also the hero's name in SPY KILLER, reviewed elsewhere on this page. I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to be the same guy.

This Kurt Reid is a pilot who stands to inherit a fortune from his late grandfather (a pretty shady character), but only if he can find a vein of gold located somewhere in the wilds of the Yucatan Peninsula within a certain amount of time. In his efforts to do so, Kurt winds up involved with some other shady characters who can't be trusted, as well as a beautiful blond girl pilot and radio operator. Throw in an ancient Mayan pyramid and a bunch of bloodthirsty natives intent on having Kurt as the guest of honor at a human sacrifice, and you've got a rip-roaring, very entertaining story in the classic adventure pulp style.

Black Towers to Danger

When it comes to pure pulp adventure yarns, L. Ron Hubbard turned them out about as well as anyone ever did. I’ve long been a fan of oilfield fiction (I had relatives in the oil business when I was growing up and spent some time around the oil patch). Hubbard’s novella “Black Towers to Danger”, which originally appeared in the October 1936 issue of FIVE-NOVELS MONTHLY, is set in Venezuala and finds rugged, two-fisted oil wildcatter Bill Murphy locked in a war with a rival outfit headed by the beautiful Marcia Stewart, who Bill was once in love with. Marcia believes that Bill murdered her father (not a spoiler to say that he didn’t), and before this tale is over, he’ll also be accused of murdering a Standard Oil executive who’s visiting the country. Bill has to battle sabotage, an overzealous officer in the Venezualan army, and a drug-addled hired killer. The action hardly ever slows down, and when Bill lugs a tripod-mounted machine gun to the top of a tower and starts yammering away with it, I wanted to let out a whoop of excitement like a little kid watching a Saturday matinee serial. Eventually everything gets sorted out, of course, but not before lots of bullets and fists fly. “Black Towers to Danger” has a bit of a lighter tone than some of Hubbard’s stories, and I had a great time reading it.

Trick Soldier

This collection features three stories of the Marine Corps fighting bandits and rebels in Haiti and Nicarauga: "Trick Soldier" from the January 1936 issue of the pulp magazine TOP-NOTCH; "He Walked to War" from the October 1, 1935 issue of ADVENTURE; and "Machine Gun 21,000" from the December 1935 issue of DYNAMIC ADVENTURES.

"Trick Soldier" is the story of two old enemies from boot camp being assigned together ten years later and how that grudge puts them both in danger. "He Walked to War" finds a Signal Corpsman with a reputation for laziness transfers to aviation so he won't have to walk all over Nicaragua stringing telephone wire and dodging bullets, only to have that effort backfire and put him in an even more hazardous situation. "Machine Gun 21,000" is about an absent-minded officer who loses a machine gun to rebel forces and has to recover it if he wants to salvage his career.

Hubbard's writing is crisp and effective in all three of these military yarns, which bear the stamp of authenticity and capture the era between the World Wars quite well. My favorite of the trio is "Machine Gun 21,000", which also includes a couple of nice plot twists that I didn't see coming. This is another good collection of Hubbard's pulp stories.

TRICK SOLDIER e-book on Amazon

TRICK SOLDIER paperback on Amazon

TRICK SOLDIER audiobook on Amazon