The Citadel Of Fear Sci Fi Classic

This eBook has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The Citadel of Fear is a lost world story and focuses on a forgotten Aztec city, which is "rediscovered" during World War I.Excerpt:"The sun, he thought, had grown monstrous and swallowed all the sky. No blue was anywhere. Brass above, soft, white-hot iron beneath, and all tinged to redness by the film of blood over sand-tormented eyes. Beyond a radius of thirty yards his vision blurred and ceased, but into that radius something flapped down and came tilting awkwardly across the sand, long wings half-spread, yellow head lowered, bold with an avid and loathsome curiosity. "You!" whispered the man hoarsely, and shook one great, red fist at the thing. "You'll not get your dinner off me nor him while my one foot can follow the other!"

The Citadel of Fear (1918) is a science fiction novel by Francis Stevens. Using her well-known pseudonym, Gertrude Barrows Bennett published some of the twentieth century’s greatest science fiction stories and novels. The Citadel of Fear, her debut novel, has been recognized as a powerful tale of the lost world genre of adventure and remains central to Stevens’ reputation as a pioneering author of fantasy and science fiction. As the Great War rages on, two Irish American prospectors journey across the Mexican desert in search of fortune. Lucky to survive the heat and harsh conditions, they discover a dense jungle rumored to be the home of a lost tribe of Aztecs devoted to the serpent god Quetzalcoatl. Despite their fears, Kennedy and Colin O’Hara remain determined to complete their mission, no matter the cost. Venturing through the darkness of the jungle, they find the underground city of Tlapallam, where a group of assailants takes Kennedy prisoner. Left to return alone through the desert, O’Hara vows to return for his friend. Published at the height of Stevens’ career as a popular storyteller in the nation’s leading fantasy magazines, The Citadel of Fear is a lost world novel in the tradition of H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs that continues to entertain and astound over a century after it appeared in print. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Francis Stevens’ The Citadel of Fear is a classic work of American science fiction reimagined for modern readers.

This eBook has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The Citadel of Fear is a lost world story and focuses on a forgotten Aztec city, which is "rediscovered" during World War I.Excerpt:"The sun, he thought, had grown monstrous and swallowed all the sky. No blue was anywhere. Brass above, soft, white-hot iron beneath, and all tinged to redness by the film of blood over sand-tormented eyes. Beyond a radius of thirty yards his vision blurred and ceased, but into that radius something flapped down and came tilting awkwardly across the sand, long wings half-spread, yellow head lowered, bold with an avid and loathsome curiosity. "You!" whispered the man hoarsely, and shook one great, red fist at the thing. "You'll not get your dinner off me nor him while my one foot can follow the other!"

Gertrude Barrows Bennett was the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction in the United States, publishing her stories under the pseudonym Francis Stevens. Bennett wrote a number of highly acclaimed fantasies between 1917 and 1923 and has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy". Citadel of Fear is considered Francis Stevens' masterpiece, by Lovecraft's acclaim. Two adventurers discover a lost city in the Mexican jungle. One is taken over by an evil god while the other falls in love with a woman from the ancient Mexican city of Tlapallan. Citadel of Fear was first published as a serial in Argosy Magazine in 1918-1919. It was eventually republished as a novel in 1970. It is now considered a "lost classic".An interesting book is Francis Stevens' The Citadel of Fear. Reprinted by Armchair Fiction as part of their Lost World-Lost Race series, this novel was originally serialized in The Argosy in 1918.This particular edition had a short select of artwork from her other works (covers of their appearances in pulp magazines), as well as the wrap-around artwork for the Paperback Library reprint of Citadel. It also had a short bio of Stevens and it was interesting.Francis Stevens was really Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1884-1948), an early author of fantasy and science fiction that some call the "woman who invented dark fantasy." She actually dropped out of school after the eighth grade and later became a stenographer. Her first published work of fiction was a short story "The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar," published in The Argosy in 1904. She later married and had a daughter, but her explorer husband died on an expedition. During World War I, her father died, and Gertrude had to help support her invalid mother.To make more money, she turned to fiction writing, and between 1917 and 1923, she wrote various short stories and longer works that appeared in several pulp magazines at the time. Several are considered excellent to this day, which is pretty high praise for someone who didn't even finish high school. Her first work was "Nightmare," which told of an island where evolution went in a different direction, similar to Edgar Rice Burrough's "The Land That Time Forgot" that appeared a year later. Bison Books has a collection of all of her short fiction in a collection titled The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy.

Armchair fiction presents extra-large paperback editions of the best in classic science fiction novels. Francis Stevens' "The Citadel of Fear" is the fourth installment of our "Lost World-Lost Race Classics" series. During a gold-finding expedition to South America, and American and an Irishman stumble upon the entrance to the lost Aztec city of Tiapallan. There they find not only the remains of an ancient Aztec race, but a black stone containing an unspeakable evil. Before long this ancient evil brings horror to the shores of America in a way that only H. P. Lovecraft could have imagined. "The Citadel of Fear" is a brilliant combination of science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural horror. It is a true masterpiece by one of the most important female sci-fi and fantasy authors of the 20th Century, Francis Stevens.

"Wonderful and tragic allegory ... amazing and thrilling scenes ... masterful ... huge mystery, gigantic tragedy, and original and extraordinary situations..." so raved H. P. Lovecraft when The Citadel of Fear first appeared. Here is one of the greatest of all classics of dark fantasy, a gorgeously written and imaginatively conceived masterpiece by the mysterious woman author who wrote as Francis Stevens. Talapallan, lost city of the ancient Aztecs, still survives in, hidden safely in an eerie underground world. And among its many temples is the black fetid shrine where the dark god Nacoc-Yaotl is worshiped, the Citadel of Fear. When two men from the modern world stumble into Talapallan, the evil in one allows Nacoc-Yaotl to escape when they return to civilization. Soon two of Steven's trademark strong women and three very different but likable men find themselves pitted against a dark god of immense powers. Before the conflict is over, North American will be the scene of an epic battle against the mightiest gods of the Aztec pantheon. Romance, magic, meaning, adventure, and scrumptious writing are all here in this long unavailable fantasy masterwork."In a career that spanned a mere three years, Gertrude Barrows Bennett (writing as Francis Stevens) published half a dozen books that came to define the genres that followed on. she is most popularly known as the woman who invented dark fantasy, but on the way she also invented a new, creepier kind of dystopian Sci Fi.Book versions illustrated with images by Virgil Finlay, from the original editions of Stevens' work.

Citadel of Fear by Francis Stevens

One of Bennett's most famous novel, Claimed, narrates the tale of a supernatural artifact which summons an ancient and powerful god to early 20th century New Jersey. Augustus T. Swift called the novel, "One of the strangest and most compelling science fantasy novels you will ever read"). Excerpt: "From where we stood the illusion of ruins was nearly perfect, and indeed — who knows? — we may to-day have looked upon the last surviving trace of some ancient city, flung up from the abyss that engulfed it ages before the brief history we have of the race of man began. I would have liked to investigate the "ruins" more closely, but thought best not to attempt it. From many fissures hot, ill-smelling, and probably poisonous vapor is still pouring up, and though the rock is sufficiently cool so that it is possible to walk on it, I deemed it safer to confine exploration to a comparatively small space near our landing-place."