In "Marching Sands," Harold Lamb likely presents a tale of adventure set against the backdrop of the ancient world or a historical period. The narrative may follow the exploits of bold heroes or adventurers as they journey through deserts, encounter different cultures, and face various challenges.As the story unfolds, readers can expect elements of action, intrigue, and exploration, as well as vivid descriptions of the landscapes and cultures encountered by the characters. Lamb's work ofte...

You want me to fail. It was neither question nor statement. It came in a level voice, the words dropping slowly from the lips of the man in the chair as if he weighed each one. He might have been speaking aloud to himself, as he sat staring directly in front of him, powerful hands crossed placidly over his knees. He was a man that other men would look at twice, and a woman might glance at once—and remember. Yet there was nothing remarkable about him, except perhaps a singular depth of ches...

Our 51st issue is another strong one one, with four of our acquiring editors finding tales for us. Michael Bracken has an original Bev Vincent mystery, and Barb Goffman has a winner from R.T. Lawton. Cynthia Ward turns the tables on fellow editor Michael Bracken and selects a haunted house story by him! And too-long-absent editor Paul Di Filippo has picked a powerful story by Sheree R. Thomas. Good stuff.As if that’s not enough (which it never is for the Black Cat!), we have gone b...

Sand drifting through centuries of wind buried Bolazan, the City of the King, from the time of Ghengis Khan. But the theory that it held lost treasures spurred the interest of two Westerners, who planned to seek it out and win their fortunes.

PUNTA ARENAS is called the jumping-off place because it is the town at the lowest end of South America, looking out on Magellan Strait where the tides of the Atlantic and Pacific meet. On the map it is within Chile, but really it is a place and a law to itself.Many of those who walk the streets have money, and some of the money actually comes from the sheep ranches of the interior. Having no customs there is of course much smuggling; having no extradition treaties, some of the men ...

Malcolm Trent, of the firm of Hammerman, Lee and Rambaud ("Unfailing and unquestioning service" was their motto), was a hotshot 22-year-old who had worked his way up from bank runner to invaluable courier. So, logically, it fell to Malcolm Trent to undertake—to oblige a client—to carry a certain package from New York City to India, and from there to Kashmir, which is on top of India, and thence to a point in the Himalaya Mountains, over the border. It was a valuable package, and he was war...

Pekin, China. 1923. It's a dangerous place for an American. But when you have a job to do, you need to get it done, no matter who is trying to kill you.

Here is Russian history focussed on when her ruler, Peter the Great, turned West. The main body of the text highlights the great "new Russia" formed in the years 1648-1772. The scene shifts from Moscow in its heyday, to St. Petersburg. Peter was treated as a barbarian when he visited Western potentates, and made up his mind to show his might. He built a vast fleet; he trained a vast army; he was the aggressor in an endless succession of foreign wars; he extended Russia's boundaries to the ...

An outstanding scholar of the East, author Harold Lamb here presented another one of his brilliant, carefully worked, and blazingly colorful tapestries of a man and his era - in this case, it is Suleiman, wisest and strongest of the Sultans of Turkey, who lived during the dying days of the Renaissance. Suleiman was building an invincible empire to the East. Drawn at first by temperament and beliefs toward Europe, Suleiman learned that the Christian rulers would never regard him as one of t...

Is it possible that a peasant and a circus girl could come to rule the Roman world? This is the strange tale of the harlot empress Theodora - the eerie beauty whose name stands in history beside Helen of Troy and Cleopatra. The daughter of a circus performer, a footloose vagabond and harlot, whose fierce ambition drove her from man to man until she finally married Justinian, a man of most humble origins who would become one of the greatest emperors of the ancient world!

This is grand reading, this story of the Persian poet, known to the modern world through the Rubaiyat - to his own times as a famous astronomer, promulgator of a new calendar, of the heresy that the earth moved round the sun, of new methods of calculation, favorite of the sultan Malikshah, hated by those who wished to carry favor in his place. The period is the eleventh century - the setting, Nisapur in Persia, with all its pageantry and glamorous romance. Historical characters, veiled in ...

Durandal - one of the greatest epics of heroic fiction ever written - has been an influence upon and model for many tales of swordplay and adventure. Durandal, of course, is the fabled sword of history and legend which somehow found its way into Africa, and finally into the Near-East, after the death of the warrior-hero Roland, knight of Charlemagne. Durandal is the tale of two crusaders, Sir Hugh of Taranto and the strange Celt, Donn Dera, whose band of 800 has been betr...