Otis Adelbert Kline was a songwriter, an adventure novelist and literary agent during the pulp era. Much of his work first appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. Kline was an amateur orientalist and a student of Arabic, like his friend and sometime collaborator, E. Hoffmann Price. The critic August Nemo selected seven short stories by this remarkable author for your enjoyment: - The Corpse on the Third Slab. - The Man from the Moon. - The Cup of Blood. - Mignight Madness. - The Malignant Entity. - The Bird-People. - The Thing of a Thousand Shapes.

Otis Adelbert Kline was a songwriter, an adventure novelist and literary agent during the pulp era. Much of his work first appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. Kline was an amateur orientalist and a student of Arabic, like his friend and sometime collaborator, E. Hoffmann Price. The critic August Nemo selected seven short stories by this remarkable author for your enjoyment: - The Corpse on the Third Slab. - The Man from the Moon. - The Cup of Blood. - Mignight Madness. - The Malignant Entity. - The Bird-People. - The Thing of a Thousand Shapes.

This book contains 350 short stories from 50 classic, prize-winning and noteworthy authors. Wisely chosen by the literary critic August Nemo for the book series 7 Best Short Stories, this omnibus contains the stories of the following writers: - Sheridan Le Fanu - H. and E. Heron - Charlotte Riddell - Flora Annie Steel - Amelia B. Edwards - Margaret Oliphant - Edward Bellamy - Arnold Bennett - S. Baring-Gould - Daniil Kharms - E.F. Benson - John Buchan - Ella D'Arcy - Jacques Futrelle - Frank Richard Stockton - John Kendrick Bangs - Kenneth Grahame - Julian Hawthorne - A. E. W. Mason - Richard Middleton - Pierre Louÿs - Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole - Ethel Richardson - Gertrude Stein - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Arthur Quiller-Couch - Mór Jókai - Andy Adams - Bertha Sinclair - Fitz James O'Brien - Eleanor H. Porter - Valery Bryusov - John Ulrich Giesy - Otis Adelbert Kline - Paul Laurence Dunbar - Frank Lucius Packard - Barry Pain - Gertrude Bennett - Francis Marion Crawford - William Pett Ridge - Gilbert Parker - Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford - Elizabeth Garver Jordan - Richard Austin Freeman - Alice Duer Miller - Leonard Merrick - Anthony Hope - Ethel Watts Mumford - Anne O'Hagan Shinn - B. M. Bower

Robert Grandon was suddenly transported to the mysterious and perilous planet of Venus...excerptRobert Ellsmore Grandon stifled a yawn with difficulty as the curtain went down on the first act of Don Giovanni and wondered what was the matter. It wasn't that opera bored him, or that tonight's performance was inferior; in fact, what he had been able to give his attention to struck him as being among the best performances he had seen. But something was distracting him, something he could not put his finger on; and the effort to keep his attention on the music and the performers was tiring him. Perhaps it was just one of those days, he thought.He was tired of life at twenty-four, he decided--tired and disillusioned and somehow trapped. After his spell of military service, he'd broken away from family obligations and expectations to join revolutionaries in Cuba. The struggle there had seemed important, worth risking his neck for; but he'd seen, much earlier than some others, that the new regime was just a change of masters. He'd gotten out while getting out was easy and returned to take up the career in insurance administration that his uncle wanted him to take--the uncle who had paid his college expenses. Now, Robert and Vincent Grandon would prepare for the position that. Uncle Arthur would be leaving in a few years. It would be a good career for both young men; for while only one could step into Arthur Grandon's shoes, the second spot would be no less desirable.Very likely, with full effort, he could make the top--but his cousin had the extra measure of devotion to the business that Robert Grandon simply couldn't bring. Robert Ellsmore Grandon yearned for action, adventure, romance--something that seemed to be gone in this world of the Twentieth Century.He made his way to the bar thinking that he'd chuck it all in a moment for a chance to think and act for himself, for a chance to accomplish something worthwhile according to his own lights. Yes--insurance was worthwhile, he thought as he sat at the bar and beckoned to Louis, but not worth his while.Louis looked his way, nodded, and started to mix a gibson for him. The bartender had a curious grin on his face as he set the glass down. "Did you get the message, Mr. Grandon?"Robert Grandon blinked. "What message?""Didn't you see the papers today?"

Jerry Morgan is a man with no future on Earth he is offered a new life on Mars and he takes it. He starts out his new life on Mars on the wrong foot by meeting a princess and killing the fearsome-looking Martian he wrongly believes is menacing her. Which in actuality is the princess's beloved pet. From there Morgan becomes entangled in the politics of the Byzantine Martian royal court spurns the advances of a would-be lover escapes his hosts and role as an expendable political pawn. Various adventures follow with dazzling swordplay feats of strength and other trials tribulations and treacheries.Kline's Mars has multiple parallel canals surrounded by walls and terraces and the construction of the canals by Martian machines is described. The story has a race-war element that may jar the modern reader.