Red Death Over China
4/5
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About this ebook
It is one of the greatest conflicts—and a pivotal turning point—in history…the Chinese civil war. On one side stands Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists. On the other, Mao Zedong and the Communists. And their forces are about to meet in a decisive battle…the outcome of which is in the hands of one American pilot, John Hampton, a man who, like Bogart in Casablanca, couldn’t care less…
He’s a mercenary, flying for the highest bidder, his only loyalty to himself and to cold hard cash. He has nothing to believe in, and nothing to lose. But just as this is a critical moment in history, so, too, is it about to become a defining moment in Hampton’s life.
What is the extraordinary experience that has the power to penetrate Hampton’s armor of cynicism and touch his heart? What is it that makes him see that there are things, other than money, that are worth fighting—and maybe even dying—for? The surprising answers spur him to undertake the ultimate mission in Red Death Over China.
Hubbard experienced China in the 1930s in a way few Westerners did. Traveling from the ports of the China Sea to Beijing to the Great Wall and onto the hills of Southern Manchuria, he came to know the land and its people—soldiers, spies, outlaws, and monks—as well as any American could. It is that background that shines through in stories like Red Death Over China.
Also includes the flying adventures The Crate Killer, in which a test pilot uses up his nine lives parachuting nine times from crumbling planes, only to discover that his tenth flight presents the biggest challenge of all; and Wings Over Ethiopia, the story of a pilot captured and accused of being a spy by both sides in a war—and his only means of escape is through the lens of a camera.
“Highly recommended for aviation action/adventure pulp fiction.” —Midwest Book Review
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 acclaimed 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.
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Reviews for Red Death Over China
13 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book was just a few short stories with a full-cast audio on 2 CDs. I had been wanting for awhile to read some of L. Ron Hubbard's novels, as they've been heavily promoted and I always enjoy reading or listening to things that were popular decades ago. It is especially interesting as I am also reading a book on Scientology (Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion), so having read this book lends a new perspective to Hubbard' biography.Anyway, about the recording itself. I must say, in the end, I didn't like it. But nonetheless I choose not to give it a low rating because I think it has a lot going for it and seomeone else may enjoy it.For one, I found it hard to listen to. Over the years, I've found that some audiobooks--maybe 1%--are just impossible to listen to in the car while driving. Usually I find audiobooks calming and help me better focus on driving. Occasionally a book is impossible to focus on while driving. Sometimes it's because of unusual accents; sometimes it's because of the depth of the content; sometimes it's for no reason I can fathom. I wouldn't say this book was impossible to listen to while driving, just more difficult than average.I also found the full-cast audio distracting. To each his own, but I think I generally prefer one narrator, or if you must, a couple narrators but without the sound effects.The stories themselves were simple, as would be expected from short stories. But the characters also are very one-dimensional. They sort of had a "going out in a blaze of glory" theme. It's definitely interesting to examine them in a historical perspective. But it's not something that would hold my interest long.So, for the right person, I think these audio books would be highly enjoyable. For me, it's really not what I was looking for.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a "retro" short story in my opinion. I could almost imagine listening to the narrator on the radio. Many answers are left up to the imagination. There is a second story on the 2-CD audiobook. It was also a good audio presentation.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I collect old pulp magazines. This story was written for the 1937 issue of War Birds. I also listened to audio tapes from the past for the old radio shows. They're a hoot to listen to since technology has changed so much. I was looking forward to listening to this audio book, and I wasn't disappointed.Galaxy Press and Library Thing allowed me the opportunity to review this audio book (thank you). It is for sale now and is two hours long and unabridged. It has two other short stories as well as the main novella.I could tell from listening to the stories that Mr. Hubbard had been in the far east and had experience with flying. Looking up his biography on the internet confirmed that. Mr. Hubbard's tales are full of action and danger in foreign lands. Death is a partner with the people in his stories.Each tale has to do with war in some way. The first is tale of fighting in China, the second is about a pilot testing planes, and the third is a war in Africa. They were all good, but the highlight was the first tale. We meet a soldier who cares about nothing: not danger, not war, nor the deaths of his fellow soldiers. He just takes the plane where he's instructed and returns, with uninterested eyes and an apathetic attitude. Until one day things change...The voices and sound effects were done well and you don't have to listen to those old commercials from the radio days. If you enjoy listening to audio books, you'll like this one. If you haven't started listening to them yet, this is a good place to start. They're short, they're well written and you can sit in chair and visit another land. Why not give the audio book a try?Happy reading.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Red Death Over China is not a typical pulp fiction story and that's why I enjoyed it so much. The second reason I enjoyed this 1937 tale reprinted from the pages of War Birds magazine is due to the fact that all of L. Ron Hubbard's pulp fiction is immensely exciting. Hubbard demonstrated an acute understanding of genre writing and during his long career he mastered them all - air adventure, westerns, fantasy, science fiction, crime suspense and many more. Red Death Over China falls into the air adventure category, but naturally it's much more than that. This remarkable tale is a character study of a man that has lost his way. And when he finds a new purpose it comes as a surprise to him, and he realizes the true nature of sacrifice. American pilot John Hampton cares for no one and believes in nothing. He wants a paycheck, and so he signs on with Mao Tse-Tung's army and brings along his Bristol, an aging slipshod airship. But after a particularly nasty battle where he saves an officer, Hampton is told the story of the Red Pagoda. Now, pondering life and death choices, Hampton's attitude slowly changes. The final line of the story is a piece of dialogue that will resonate with readers long after they set the book down. Red Death Over China is American pulp fiction at its best. This volume includes two bonus stories: The Crate Killer, a brilliant suspense air adventure classic; and Wings Over Ethiopia. I love Hubbard's air adventure stories and this book is highly recommended.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The story, "Red Death over China," which was first published in October 1937 in an issue of "War Birds" magazine. There’s this American Pilot, John Hampton who is just kind of floating through life. He stands for nobody but himself and his own interests. He feels there are no causes worth sticking his neck out for and he’s in it just for the paycheck. He’s hired to deliver a plane to Mao Tse-tung because the pay is good but sees that now he’s going to fly a mission that he could die doing. John Hampton up till then had always felt that nothing is worth dying for. Hampton sees the courage of an army defending an undefendable location and it gets him to really think about whom he is and should be as a man. This is a well-written story for all times and I enjoyed it very much and recommend it to all others.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a pretty good recording of a pretty good story. It’s apparently an audio version of a pulp fiction story from the thirties. I’m not overwhelmed by it, but I much prefer print to audio for this kind of escapist literature.
Book preview
Red Death Over China - L. Ron Hubbard
SELECTED FICTION WORKS
BY L. RON HUBBARD
FANTASY
The Case of the Friendly Corpse
Death’s Deputy
Fear
The Ghoul
The Indigestible Triton
Slaves of Sleep & The Masters of Sleep
Typewriter in the Sky
The Ultimate Adventure
SCIENCE FICTION
Battlefield Earth
The Conquest of Space
The End Is Not Yet
Final Blackout
The Kilkenny Cats
The Kingslayer
The Mission Earth Dekalogy*
Ole Doc Methuselah
To the Stars
ADVENTURE
The Hell Job series
WESTERN
Buckskin Brigades
Empty Saddles
Guns of Mark Jardine
Hot Lead Payoff
A full list of L. Ron Hubbard’s
novellas and short stories is provided at the back.
*Dekalogy: a group of ten volumes
TitlePgArt.jpgPublished by
Galaxy Press, LLC
7051 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 200
Hollywood, CA 90028
© 2012 L. Ron Hubbard Library. All Rights Reserved.
Any unauthorized copying, translation, duplication, importation or distribution, in whole or in part, by any means, including electronic copying, storage or transmission, is a violation of applicable laws.
Mission Earth is a trademark owned by L. Ron Hubbard Library and is used with permission. Battlefield Earth is a trademark owned by Author Services, Inc. and is used with permission.
Story Preview cover art and illustration: Argosy Magazine is © 1935, 1936 Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission from Argosy Communications, Inc. Horsemen illustration from Western Story Magazine is © and ™ Condé Nast Publications and is used with their permission. Fantasy, Far-Flung Adventure and Science Fiction illustrations; Story Preview and Glossary illustrations and A Matter of Matter cover art: Unknown and Astounding Science Fiction copyright © by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Penny Publications, LLC.
ISBN 978-1-59212-605-7 ePub version
ISBN 978-1-59212-780-1 Kindle version
ISBN 978-1-59212-364-3 print version
ISBN 978-1-59212-334-6 audiobook version
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007903541
Contents
FOREWORD
RED DEATH OVER CHINA
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE CRATE KILLER
WINGS OVER ETHIOPIA
STORY PREVIEW:
THE DIVE BOMBER
L. RON HUBBARD
IN THE GOLDEN AGE
OF PULP FICTION
THE STORIES FROM THE
GOLDEN AGE
GLOSSARY
FOREWORD
Stories from Pulp Fiction’s Golden Age
AND it was a golden age.
The 1930s and 1940s were a vibrant, seminal time for a gigantic audience of eager readers, probably the largest per capita audience of readers in American history. The magazine racks were chock-full of publications with ragged trims, garish cover art, cheap brown pulp paper, low cover prices—and the most excitement you could hold in your hands.
Pulp
magazines, named for their rough-cut, pulpwood paper, were a vehicle for more amazing tales than Scheherazade could have told in a million and one nights. Set apart from higher-class slick
magazines, printed on fancy glossy paper with quality artwork and superior production values, the pulps were for the rest of us,
adventure story after adventure story for people who liked to read. Pulp fiction authors were no-holds-barred entertainers—real storytellers. They were more interested in a thrilling plot twist, a horrific villain or a white-knuckle adventure than they were in lavish prose or convoluted metaphors.
The sheer volume of tales released during this wondrous golden age remains unmatched in any other period of literary history—hundreds of thousands of published stories in over nine hundred different magazines. Some titles lasted only an issue or two; many magazines succumbed to paper shortages during World War II, while others endured for decades yet. Pulp fiction remains as a treasure trove of stories you can read, stories you can love, stories you can remember. The stories were driven by plot and character, with grand heroes, terrible villains, beautiful damsels (often in distress), diabolical plots, amazing places, breathless romances. The readers wanted to be taken beyond the mundane, to live adventures far removed from their ordinary lives—and the pulps rarely failed to deliver.
In that regard, pulp fiction stands in the tradition of all memorable literature. For as history has shown, good stories are much more than fancy prose. William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas—many of the greatest literary figures wrote their fiction for the readers, not simply literary colleagues and academic admirers. And writers for pulp magazines were no exception. These publications reached an audience that dwarfed the circulations of today’s short story magazines. Issues of the pulps were scooped up and read by over thirty million avid readers each month.
Because pulp fiction writers were often paid no more than a cent a word, they had to become prolific or starve. They also had to write aggressively. As Richard Kyle, publisher and editor of Argosy, the first and most long-lived of the pulps, so pointedly explained: The pulp magazine writers, the best of them, worked for markets that did not write for critics or attempt to satisfy timid advertisers. Not having to answer to anyone other than their readers, they wrote about human beings on the edges of the unknown, in those new lands the future would explore. They wrote for what we would become, not for what we had already been.
Some of the more lasting names that graced the pulps include H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Max Brand, Louis L’Amour, Elmore Leonard, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, John D. MacDonald, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein—and, of course, L. Ron Hubbard.
In a word, he was among the most prolific and popular writers of the era. He was also the most enduring—hence this series—and certainly among the most legendary. It all began only months after he first tried his hand at fiction, with L. Ron Hubbard tales appearing in Thrilling Adventures, Argosy, Five-Novels Monthly, Detective Fiction Weekly, Top-Notch, Texas Ranger, War Birds, Western Stories, even Romantic Range. He could write on any subject, in any genre, from jungle explorers to deep-sea divers, from G-men and gangsters, cowboys and flying aces to mountain climbers, hard-boiled detectives and spies. But he really began to shine when he turned his talent to science fiction and fantasy of which he authored nearly fifty novels or novelettes to forever change the shape of those genres.
Following in the tradition of such famed authors as Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Jack London and Ernest Hemingway, Ron Hubbard actually lived adventures that his own characters would have admired—as an ethnologist among primitive tribes, as prospector and engineer in hostile climes, as a captain of vessels on four oceans. He even wrote a series of articles for Argosy, called Hell Job,
in which he lived and told of the most dangerous professions a man could put his hand to.
Finally, and just for good measure, he was also an accomplished photographer, artist, filmmaker, musician and educator. But he was first and foremost a writer, and that’s the L. Ron Hubbard we come to know through the pages of this volume.
This library of Stories from the Golden Age presents the best of L. Ron Hubbard’s fiction from the heyday of storytelling, the Golden Age of the pulp magazines. In these eighty volumes, readers are treated to a full banquet of 153 stories, a kaleidoscope of tales representing every imaginable genre: science fiction, fantasy, western, mystery, thriller, horror, even romance—action of all kinds and in all places.
Because the pulps themselves were printed on such inexpensive paper with high acid content, issues were not meant to endure. As the years go by, the original issues of every pulp from Argosy through Zeppelin Stories continue crumbling into brittle, brown dust. This library preserves the L. Ron Hubbard tales from that era, presented with a distinctive look that brings back the nostalgic flavor of those times.
L. Ron Hubbard’s Stories from the Golden Age has something for every taste, every reader. 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.
Pick up a volume, and remember what reading is supposed to be all about. Remember curling up with a great story.
—Kevin J. Anderson
KEVIN J. ANDERSON is the author of more than ninety critically acclaimed works of speculative fiction, including The Saga of Seven Suns, the continuation of the Dune Chronicles with Brian Herbert, and his New York Times bestselling novelization of