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    The Carnival of Death: Golden Age Stories
    The Carnival of Death: Golden Age Stories
    The Carnival of Death: Golden Age Stories
    Audiobook2 hours

    The Carnival of Death: Golden Age Stories

    Written by L. Ron Hubbard

    Narrated by R.F. Daley, Jason Faunt, Lori Jablons and

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Decadence and murder found on the dark side of the big city pales in comparison to the freak show found by undercover US narcotics agent Bob Clark in The Carnival of Death.

    Clark's investigation begins with cocaine and leads to cold-blooded murder—the discovery of one, and then another, headless corpse. Who is behind the slaughter? Are the killings tied to the drug traffic? Or is a deeper, darker, and even more sinister conspiracy unfolding in the carnival?

    There are plenty of distractions—bright lights and beautiful girls—but Clark better find the murderers of the midway fast. Because the next head that rolls could very well be his own.

    Also includes the mystery The Death Flyer, in which a man and woman find themselves trapped on a ghost train and bound for a deadly crash ... unless they can find a way to derail fate and cheat death—on the fly.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGalaxy Press
    Release dateMar 15, 2011
    ISBN9781592124305
    Author

    L. Ron Hubbard

    With 19 New York Times bestsellers and more than 350 million copies of his works in circulation, L. Ron Hubbard is among the most enduring and widely read authors of our time. As a leading light of American Pulp Fiction through the 1930s and '40s, he is further among the most influential authors of the modern age. Indeed, from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, there is scarcely a master of imaginative tales who has not paid tribute to L. Ron Hubbard. Then too, of course, there is all L. Ron Hubbard represents as the Founder of Dianetics and Scientology and thus the only major religion born in the 20th century.

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    Reviews for The Carnival of Death

    3.5/5

    31 ratings12 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The Carnival of Death did not have the great sound effects the other stories in this series that I have received did. What makes this CD really good is the second story, “The Death Flyer”. Not only is the production better but the story is very very good.
    • 2/5
      I got this for free at a conference ages ago. It features a foreword by Kevin J. Anderson, two stories by L. Ron Hubbard ("The Carnival of Death" and "The Death Flyer" - both of which are accompanied by black and white illustrations), a brief preview of Hubbard's "Mouthpiece," a glossary of 1930s and 1940s words and expression used in the stories, and a 9-page overview of L. Ron Hubbard's writing life (nothing negative, and not a single mention of Scientology).Kevin J. Anderson's foreword had nothing but glowing praise for pulp fiction, which I suppose would have been fine if it hadn't been for the implication that pulp fiction of the 1930s and 1940s was better and more enjoyable than most fiction published today. "These tales will return you to a time when fiction was good clean entertainment and the most fun a kid could have on a rainy afternoon or the best thing an adult could enjoy after a long day at work" (x-xi). That kid and adult are almost certainly white and male, and their "good clean entertainment" has a high concentration of violence and death.I'd probably have disliked "The Carnival of Death" regardless, but Anderson's foreword certainly didn't help."The Carnival of Death"The longest of the two stories, at almost 70 pages. Bob Clark has been hired as a carnival detective, tasked with investigating a cocaine smuggling ring operating somewhere within the carnival. His work is complicated by the discovery of a decapitated body - the barker who oversaw four captive African headhunters (later specified to be Nigerians). The headhunters are gone, and the initial assumption is that they escaped and killed their captor, but Clark isn't so sure. A little hair left behind at the crime scene leads him to think that the true culprit is a white man who freed the headhunters as a diversion.This was almost purely action, and it wasn't even very good action. Clark would do a tiny bit of investigating, get attacked or otherwise get in a fight, and then do a little more investigating. It seemed odd to me that Clark kept thinking the blond guy had something to do with the decapitated body when the text specifically referred to the hair he found as "white" rather than "blond," but I'm guessing readers weren't supposed to be thinking about things like that.Granted, I only have this story and "The Death Flyer" to go off of, but I wonder if any of the women in Hubbard's pulp fiction stories were ever referred to as "women"? I'm guessing only if they were older and/or unattractive. The one in this story was always a "girl." Meanwhile, the young man who I assumed was probably about the same age as her was either "the blond youth" or "the man called Jack."The Nigerian headhunter aspect was painfully dated, and I cringed every time they were mentioned, which thankfully wasn't quite as much as I expected. Not a single character in this story saw any problems with four Black people held captive and put on display for a white audience (incidentally, Anderson's fawning foreword didn't discuss pulp fiction's handling of race at all)."The Death Flyer"A civil engineer named Jim Bellamy is walking along a train track back to his camp one evening, cursing himself for being out so late, when he almost gets run over by a train. The conductor pulls over and offers him a ride, which he accepts, only to discover that he's stepped into a strange, spooky, and probably dangerous situation.This little ghost story was actually sort of okay, at least in comparison to "The Carnival of Death." Granted, trains can't just casually pull over to take on random passengers, but the supernatural element makes me slightly more willing to let than one slide.There wasn't much to it - the whole thing was only 20 or so pages. It was a little confusing, and it featured yet another instance of a young woman who I assume was at least in her twenties being referred to as a "girl." I've read and watched better supernatural train stories. Still, it wasn't bad.Overall, this book wasn't for me, and I have no intention of reading more of Hubbard's works.(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
    • 4/5
      I liked The Carnival of Death and was surprised with how few pages as this author tends to write tomes! If you know the author, you'll know he writes stories from the 40's and 50's, I liked US narcotics agent Bob Clark with his "Bogey" style as he fought to find the killer in the carnival and the dope smuggler using the carnival for evil. I loved that there was teasing short stories to wet my appetite for more.
    • 4/5
      This was so totally out of the realm of what I normally read. It was an audiobook and they presented it like an old time radio show. It was so hokey, it was fun! A cheesy mystery that you really wanted to solve with the detective. I'm most likely going to try some others in this series.

      I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. I got is as an audiobook and I just loved it :) I would recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      I received this audio book as a part of the Library Thing Free Book Advance and loved listening to it. I find these books by L. Ron Hubbard very easy to listen to. I love that these stories are around 2 hours in length so they are good for short drives. I thought that the story contained plenty of action and the narrator did a fantastic job building up the suspense at the times it was needed. I would highly recommend that people pick these (Stories from the Golden Age) books up, because they are well worth it.
    • 3/5
       I listened to this on a 2 hour car drive for work. I love mysteries and thought this would be a good "who done it" mystery to listen to while driving. I do have to say out of all the stories this one wasn't as good as I hoped for. It was okay if I had to put a word for the story. It seemed to be missing something. The audio book voice actors were great and I think that is what kept me going through the story even though I lost interest. The second story I liked a lot more - a very neat idea/concept and enjoyed that one much more than the first. Not a bad story just didn't feed my mystery-loving curious self.
    • 5/5
      This is my first audiobook, which I also won from LibraryThing. I plan to try more audiobooks real soon!The walk through the carnival of death was a treat for me. Huge fan of Carnivals, Dark and eerie settings. Really enjoyed the music before chapters. The cast of characters and voice overs I think they did a great job. Oh and L Ron Hubbard is a kickass writer.Almost forgot about. The other short on this audiobook "Death Flyer" was well told. A train ride with the lurking dead, a whisper in the ear. Another eerie tale, that gives the golden era a thumbs up.
    • 3/5
      Campy but fun! I really enjoyed it.
    • 2/5
      It is hard to review this work. I try to judge a book based on the time period in which it is written. However, this is a re-release glorifying the past, calling it is the Golden Age, "when villains were truly evil." This brings me to my biggest complaint about "The Carnival of Death," the accepted racism. "The Carnival of Death" is an adventure story written in 1934, yet one of the key plot points is the enslavement of four Nigerian men as a sideshow attraction. They are the headhunters in the story who serve as a red herring to distract from the drug dealing and murders. L. Ron Hubbard writes a short story that reads like a plot outline for a longer work. Nothing is fleshed out or detailed. Everything happens rapid fire and not in a good way. One cannot care about any of these characters. The idea behind the plot might have worked if the author took the time to actually develop it. "The Death Flyer," the second story on the audiobook, is a ghost story. This was a better story and executed more efficiently. Overall, the full-cast audiobook is produced well. The main narrator harkens us back to the time of classic radio, but that is not enough to recommend this story.
    • 4/5
      First, I received this audio book as a part of the Library Thing Free Book Advance, but I am so glad that I did. I was not sure I would enjoy the story (actually 2 stories.... one entitled "Carnival of Death" and theother "The Death Flyer." The voice of the narrator was good, the sound effects was good and the story line was fine for 1930s. This would be a great book to listen to on a long car ride or a trip. There are many other books and stories in this audio series and I assume they are all as good as this one - for what it is... an good example of Pulp Fiction from the Golden Age. Finally, do not worry or even take into consideration that it is L. Ron Hubbard (the founder of an odd religion or worldview)... because it never factors into these stories. It just goes to show that a person can be good at what they do (write novels, sing songs, argue cases, diagnosis illnesses) and have other sides to their lives that are not necessarily tied. Oh, by the way, the story involves an undercover secret service guy who finds 4 headhunters who are at a carnival and who are killing people by cutting off their heads! The story has lots of grunts and punches being thrown. All good stuff for action folks. Paul Floyd, Mpls, MN 55402
    • 4/5
      If you like radio dramas, as I do, you will enjoy this. It's a quick "listen", light-weight novelette. I'm not sure what you would classify it as: spy, war, love story? Non of the above actually. But I enjoyed it.