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    Awesome Tales #1: Pretenders to the Throne
    Awesome Tales #1: Pretenders to the Throne
    Awesome Tales #1: Pretenders to the Throne
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    Awesome Tales #1: Pretenders to the Throne

    By R. Allen Leider

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    About this ebook

    In "Pretenders to the Throne," the sultry DOMINO LADY battles a supernatural menace threatening London. In her civilian identity, the lovely Ellen Patrick, on behalf of the Roberts Commission, appraises artworks stolen by the Nazis -- after-hours, as the DOMINO LADY she plays a cat-and-mouse game with a gentleman thief who is in over his head. Nazis, witches, and the pulp-style of excitement. This is a rollicking tale that brings together the pulp femme fatale, as revived by Rich Harvey, and Wicca Girl, co-author R. Allen Leider's 900-year old witch turned MI-6 agent. Face it, this yarn has everything!

    In addition to the 15,000 word lead feature, this issue also features two spine-tingling back-up stories. "Seven Pictures" by Jean-Marie Ward deals with murder and hubris at the Pentagon, while "The Warlock Murders" confronts Druscilla (a.k.a. Wicca Girl) with an unsolved 300-year old mystery.

    This issue sports a dynamic cover painting featuring the Domino Lady by Ed Coutts. The print edition includes new black and white illustrations by Ed Coutts.

    Awesome Tales doesn’t just take its inspiration from pulp fiction — Awesome Tales IS pulp fiction, through and through. The heroes are heroic, the damsels also get their licks, and the villains are real finks. Cliffhangers? Suspense? Better take your heart medication and buckle up!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBold Venture Press
    Release dateMay 2, 2016
    ISBN9781310256370
    Awesome Tales #1: Pretenders to the Throne
    Author

    R. Allen Leider

    Film reviewer/screenwriter R. Allen Leider began his career in 1970 at CBS news as copy boy for The Walter Cronkite News. In 1973, he became features writer for The Monster Times and went on to work at Show, Celebrity and Glitter magazines and other international publications. In 1984, he created the original story and screenplay for The Oracle (1985), and hosted his own radio show, Cinemascene, on WWFM for five years.He has contributed many short stories for the anthologies, Dark Furies, Hear Them Roar, Crypto-Critters I, Bad Ass Faeries I, and Barbarians at the Jumpgate and The Walrii Project. In 2004, he was co-writer of The Field Guide to Monsters and The Field Guide to Aliens. Presently, he writes and edits the online Black Cat Review. He edits Awesome Tales, a pulp-fiction mini-magazine, and the Wicca Girl-based anthologies The Hellfire Lounge.The first outline for the Wicca Girl project was written in 1961 in high school English class. His photojournalistic work has been syndicated worldwide. He lives in Manhattan with wife Barbara, a professional photographer, and an assortment of Egyptian feline gods.

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      Book preview

      Awesome Tales #1 - R. Allen Leider

      Awesome Tales #1

      R. Allen Leider, editor

      Published by Bold Venture Press

      www.boldventurepress.com

      Cover art: Ed Coutts

      Cover design: Rich Harvey

      Pretenders to the Throne by Rich Harvey with R. Allen Leider.

      Copyright 2014 by Rich Harvey with R. Allen Leider. All Rights Reserved.

      Seven Pictures by Jean Marie Ward.

      Copyright 2014 by Jean Marie Ward. All Rights Reserved.

      The Warlock Murders by R. Allen Leider.

      Copyright 2014 by R. Allen Leider. All Rights Reserved.

      This book is available in print at most online retailers.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express permission of the publisher and copyright holder. All persons, places and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places or events is purely coincidental.

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy.

      Table of Contents

      Editorial

      Pretenders to the Throne

      By Rich Harvey with R. Allen Leider

      The Allied force’s most alluring spy – The Domino Lady – searches for a hidden cache of stolen art while evil supernatural forces threaten London. Can MI-6’s dynamic Agent Wicca Girl team with Domino to save the day and thwart the Nazis?

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Seven Pictures

      by Jean Marie Ward

      Intrigue in the Pentagon leads to jealousy and blood sports

      The Warlock Murders

      By R. Allen Leider

      MI-6 supernatural Agent Wicca Girl, Druscilla Marie d’Lambert, works with Scotland Yard to solve the mystery of a 300 year-old serial killer and finds it’s a more Hellish assignment than she bargained for …

      About the Author

      Other Books by This Author

      Connect with Bold Venture Press

      Editorial

      Pulp magazines are inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s.

      Pulps were printed on cheap paper with ragged, untrimmed edges. This medium was the fertile training ground for aspiring writers to hone their craft for decades. Many of the legendary authors and characters of the 20th Century first appeared and matured in the pages of the pulps.

      Modern superhero comic books are considered descendants of hero pulps; pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters, such as The Domino Lady, The Shadow, Doc Savage and others. Writers such as Dashiell Hammet, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle penned their adventures for the pulps.

      At their peak of popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, the most successful pulps sold up to one million copies per issue. The most successful pulp magazines were Argosy, Adventure, Blue Book and Short Stories described by some pulp historians as The Big Four. Among the best-known other titles of this period were Amazing Stories, Black Mask, Dime Detective, Flying Aces, Horror Stories, Marvel Tales, Unknown, Weird Tales.

      During WWII paper shortages had a serious impact on pulp production, starting a steady rise in costs and the decline of the pulps. The pulp magazines began to switch to digests smaller, thicker magazines and in 1949, Street & Smith closed most of their pulp magazines. As the pulp format declined from rising expenses it also faced heavy competition from their offspring the comic books, television, and the paperback novels.

      In the 1950s, men’s adventure magazines began to replace the pulp. Pulp Magazines soon became the dinosaurs of the print media world until recently when a resurgence in interest in their art, form and classic characters began.

      Awesome Tales now rekindles the pulp glory days with new writers, exciting tales of adventure, horror and mystery and fresh new artists. Here you will find classic public domain heroes and heroines, new characters and thrilling, chilling stories.

      In our first issue The Domino Lady meets MI-6 supernatural Agent Wicca Girl to thwart a fiendish Nazi plot. In future issues we will discover the mad secrets of Dr. Mabuse during WWII, Allan Quatermain and the Congo Zombies, Fantomas’ Ultimate Weapon, Fu Manchu’s Computer Virus and much more.

      Best of all, Awesome Tales doesn’t just take its inspiration pulp fiction — Awesome Tales IS pulp fiction, through and through. The heroes are heroic, the damsels also get their licks, and the villains are real finks. Cliffhangers? Suspense? Better take your heart medication.

      Onward!

      Pretenders to the Throne

      An adventure of The Domino Lady and Wicca Girl

      By Rich Harvey with R. Allen Leider

      Chapter One

      An Evening Visit

      Moonlight streaming through the French doors formed a checkerboard shadow across floor-to-ceiling bookcases. King George VI looked up from his timepiece. It was 9 p.m. October 29, the desk calendar read.

      He sipped a glass of brandy, listening to Big Ben’s chimes, when a larger shadow glided into the blue light rectangle. The hinges creaked, and a blonde hourglass in white evening gown stepped into his study.

      Framed in the doorway, moonlight daubing the edges of her body, she was a masked angel. Death … Time … Love … Whatever … With a body like that, she had to be someone’s angel.

      She curtsied, flourishing her black cloak. Your highness, she spoke. Her voice traveled first class on the musical scale. I trust I haven’t startled you?

      No, the king said. Director McTarry from MI-6 advised me to expect you.

      Michael McTarry of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, was in contact with everyone, and knew everything about everyone, except his most secret agent — codenamed Wicca Girl.

      Then you are aware of the Nazi plot to steal the crown jewels, the masked adventuress told him. That plot goes much deeper than the Nazis.

      Even at forty-eight years, The King retained strong handsome features. He studied the Domino Lady from the tips of her high-heeled shoes to the crown of her blonde locks. Yes, even while discussing Hitler’s quest for world domination, her beauty distracted him. She appeared on the cusp of thirty, and her children would be fine specimens.

      She playfully twirled a large globe nestled in a corner between bookcases.

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