AFTER a year-long Covid delay, Age of Aces Books has returned with two new books. We’ll be premiering them at PulpFest 2021 this week.

First up is The Black Falcon by Arthur J. Burks.

Selected by Black Jack Pershing himself for an impossible assignment, Lt. Evan Post was volunteered to drive Germany’s top five aces out of the sky. Orders were sent ahead to see that he was given every cooperation by any allied post of command he would work out of. With the biggest, blackest, ugliest bird painted on his red plane’s fuselage, Post worked the list. And with every German Ace he downed, Evan Post became known as The Black Falcon!

Arthur J. Burks never met a story he couldn’t write. Although he was known to be able to craft a story about anything suggested to him, he was probably best known for his weird menace and detective stories. He wrote six stories with The Black Falcon for Sky Fighters magazine, with a nice continuity running through them. So much so, when he published the sixth story, two years after the initial five, The Black Falcon was a mythic character the young recruits had only heard of.

Stories Include: The Black Falcon (Oct 33), The Balloon Buster (Feb 34), Falcon Fury (Mar 34), The Falcon Flies High (Apr 34), Claws of the Falcon (Jun 34), and Black Falcon’s Return (Jul 36).

Our second book is the ninth and final volume of Donald E. Keyhoe’s Captain Philip Strange Adventures—Strange Rivals.

Captain Philip Strange is back in nine more weird WWI stories! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI and the verdamnt Brain-Devil by the Boche. In these stories from the end of the series run, The Brain-Devil’s arch nemesis, Karl von Zenden, the quick-change Man of a Thousand Faces resurfaces to wreak havoc and cause more trouble—from aerodromes peopled with corpses to pirate staffels to German Officials dropped over Paris to gases of forgetfulness to all of England disappearing! Von Zenden does his worst! Thankfully, we have have Captain Philip Strange on our side to stop them in some of his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

Stories Include: Dead Man’s Drone (Jun 37), Skeletons From the Sky (Dec 37), Scourge of Oblivion (Apr 38), Pirate Squadron (Jun 38), The Gray Face Ace (Oct 28), Strafe of the Skull (Dec 38), Raid of the Wraith (Mar 39), Flight of the Phantoms (Aug 39), and When England Vanished (Nov 39).

In addition to our two new titles, we’ll have all of our previous titles that are still in print as well as some fun extras include an 11″ x 14″ art print of all 64 splash opens for the Philip Strange stories in order from “A Squadron Shall Perish” to “When England Vanished”. If you’re at the show, stop by, say “Hi” and pick up a copy. (Quantities are limited.)

CAPTAIN PHILIP STRANGE returns to face off against the Man of 1000 Faces, Karl Von Zenden in the final volume of the series, Strange Rivals!

THIS November we’re celebrating William E. Barrett’s Birthday. Before he became renown for such classics as The Left Hand of God and Lilies of The Field, Barrett honed his craft across the pages of the pulp magazines—and nowhere more so than in War Birds and it’s companion magazine War Aces where he contributed smashing novels and novelettes, True tales of the Aces of the Great War, encyclopedic articles on the great war planes as well as other factual features. Here at Age of Aces Books he’s best known for his nine Iron Ace stories which ran in Sky Birds in the mid ’30s!

Among those factual features was “Famous Firsts” which ran frequently in the pages of War Aces. “Famous Firsts” was an illustrated feature much along the lines of Barrett’s “Is That a Fact?” that was running in War Birds, only here the facts were all statements of firsts. And like “Is That a Fact?” in War Birds, this feature was also taken over by noted cartoonist Victor “Vic Vac” Vaccarezza in 1932.

The February 1932 installment, from the pages of War Aces, features Bill Thaw, Jimmy Bach and the real Captain Strange!

Next Wednesday Barrett features Lt. Alan McLeod, The Sopwith Tabloid, and the Number One Battle Squadron!

AGE OF ACES will be back at PulpFest again this year where we will be debuting our two new titles!

Our first is the penultimate volume in our Captain Philip Strange series—back this time with eight more weird WWI stories spanning the run of the series in Strange Deaths! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI and the verdamnt Brain-Devil by the Boche. Just when you thought there were no more ways to die in war, the Germans come up with some even more gruesome ways! if you’re not just being incinerated by the sun’s ray focused through enormous lenses, you’re being gassed with a horribly disfiguring plague; drowned in a sea of blood or injected with a serum that turns you into a hyped up fighting hellion until you keel over dead; maybe you’ll be lucky and just have your own munitions blow up your entire outfit, or simply have your head chopped off and mounted on some psychotic ace’s wings. Thankfully, we have have Captain Philip Strange on our side to stop them in eight of his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

The inseparable trio is back!, Through the dark night sky, streaking swiftly with their Hisso engines thundering, is the greatest trio of aces on the Western Front—the famous and inseparable “Three Mosquitoes,” the mightiest flying combination that had ever blazed its way through overwhelming odds and laughed to tell of it! At point was Captain Kirby, impetuous young leader of the great trio; on his right was little Lieutenant “Shorty” Carn, the mild-eyed, corpulent little Mosquito and lanky Lieutenant Travis, eldest and wisest of the Mosquitoes on his left! Flying in a V formation through four exciting hell-bent tales from the pages of Popular Publication’s Battle Aces—”The X-Gun Flight” (Jan 32), “The Iron Ace” (Feb 32), “The Flying Dreadnought” (Jun 32), “The 20-Ace Patrol” (Jul 32)—all illustrated by John Fleming Gould!

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Pittsburgh for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases! We hope we see you there!

AGE OF ACES will be back at PulpFest again this year where we will be debuting our two new titles!

Our first is the lastest in our Captain Philip Strange series—back with six more weird WWI stories in Strange Squadrons! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI. From his very first adventure, Captain Philip Strange has rooted out only the most bizarre battalions commissioned by Germany in the Great War. When flying coffins circle the air, or severed hands drop from the sky, the call goes out for the Phantom Ace of G-2 Intelligence. For the Allies know that only the so-called “Brain-Devil” and his aides can out-fly the zombie traitors and human bombs, or out-spy fiends like The Mask and the Man with the Iron Claw! When World War I gets weird, only America’s own “Phantom Ace of G-2” has a ghost of a chance against the supernatural slaughter. Captain Philip Strange in his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

We’re doubling down on Keyhoe this year, as our other title is the second half of the Jailbird Flight Stories that ran through all three of Popular Publication’s air anthology titles. Starting in Battle Aces in September 1931 running through the end of it’s initial publication run when they switched to Battle Birds at the end of 1932 and into Dare-Devil Aces in 1934.

The Jailbird Flight: The Devil Flies High. They had all been sentenced to a living death and all bore The Convict Brand! The Jailbirds were recruited from the military prisons of Britain, France, and America. Real men, molded in the harsh fires of life, dishonored perhaps in the eyes of the Army—but men with red blood and courage. Hard fighters, some of them hiding bitter memories, but all of them ready to follow their leader, “Killer” Kirby, down a flaming suicide trail on the most dangerous missions of the Great War! Rather than wither behind bars—they were given the chance to die fighting!

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Pittsburgh for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

IF YOU can’t make it to PulpFest in Columbus this weekend, you can still get copies of our new books online from the usual outlets. Both of our new books—Harold F. Cruickshank’s Sky Devil: Ace of Devils and Donald E. Keyhoe’s Captain Philip Strange: Strange Hell—are now available to order online from Adventure House, Mike Chomko Books and Amazon!

While you’re waiting for the books to arrive, why not check out some of the extras we’ve put on line for each book to whet your appetite. For Cruickshank’s second volume of Sky Devil tales Ace of Devils we’ve posted the original pulp scans from Dare-Devil Aces magazine of the opening page art so you can see how it would have looked if you were reading the stories back in the 1930’s when they were originally published. You can also read the opening of the stories in the scans.

For the latest release of the weird World War I adventures of Donald E. Keyhoe’s Captain Philip Strange we have the original full page scans of the opening artwork for each of the six stories collected in Strange Hell! As we did for the last volume, we’re posting the full page scan so you can read a bit of story and enjoy Eugene M. Frandzen’s art in all its glory from the pages of Flying Aces magazine. Painton’s Squadron also uses Frandzen’s art, but here in the bedsheet sized issues of Flying Aces you get those glorious painted images Frandzen would do—much better than his line art.

And the piece de resistance of any Strange book—Chris’ great cutout artwork he does for each of the stories! There are only six this time—but they’re all winners. You can check them out on the Strange Hell Design page!

Both books are available for $16.99 wherever our books are sold, so pick up both today! You can order online from Adventure House, Mike Chomko Books and Amazon!

AGE OF ACES will be back at PulpFest again this year where we will be debuting our two new titles!

First, we have the lastest in our Captain Philip Strange series—back with six more weird WWI stories in Strange Hell! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI. The German Empire has unleased Hell on Earth! The dead are climbing out of their graves and giant skeletons attack the living. Heads are detonating and soldiers are turning to bronze. But flying to the rescue like an avenging angel is America’s own “Brain Devil,” Captain Philip Strange, the phantom ace of G-2 Intelligence. Whether it’s deadly bridges or killer broadcasts, when the Allies need a miracle they pray for Philip Strange! When World War I gets weird, only America’s own “Phantom Ace of G-2” has a ghost of a chance against the supernatural slaughter. Captain Philip Strange in his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

Our other title is from the prolific pen of Harold F. Cruickshank. Sky Devil: Ace of Devils collects the second half of Cruickshank’s stories about The Sky Devil and his Brood—Lieutenants “Chuck” Verne, “Slug” Walton, Mart Bevan, “Slim” Skitch and the maverick peelot, Tom Foster! Nowhere along the Western Front could you find a more feared crew, both in their element and out. The Sky Devil and his Brood could always be counted on to whip Germany’s best Aces, out-scrap entire squadrons of Boche killers, or tackle not one, but two crazed Barons with an Egyptology fetish! But what happens when they find themselves up in a dirigible fighting a fleet of ghost zeppelins, or down in the English Channel battling ferocious deep water beasts, or even behind enemy lines dealing with a crazed Major Petrie?

This volume is bursting with fifteen action-packed air tales of those riders of the Hell trail—including the seminal story we unwittingly left out of the first volume where Dawe is rooked out of command of the 120 Squadron in leu of the frequently simpering Major Petrie.

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Columbus for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

IT’S HARD to believe it’s already been ten years since we introduced you to Jed Garrett, aka Captian Babyface, and his faithful dog Click, the hell-hound, but it has. It was ten years ago today Age of Aces Books published it’s first—Captain Babyface: The Complete Adventures, gathering together all 10 of Steve Fisher’s tales of Captain Babyface and his battles against the skull-visaged Mr. Death that ran in the pages of Dare-Devil Aces in 1936.

Over the past ten years we’ve published the best names in weird World War I fiction from the tattered pages of the old pulp magazines. In addition to Steve Fisher, we’ve published work from the illustrious likes of Robert J. Hogan (The Red Falcon and Smoke Wade), Donald E. Keyhoe (Captain Philip Strange, The Vanished Legion and The Jailbird Flight); C.M. Miller (Chinese Brady), Ralph Oppenheim (The Three Mosquitoes), William E. Barrett (The Iron Ace), Robert M. Burtt (Battling Grogan), O.B. Myers (The Blacksheep of Belogue), Arch Whitehouse (Coffin Kirk), Harold F. Cruickshank (Sky Devil), William Hartley (Molloy & McNamara), and Frederick C. Painton (The Squadron of the Dead). That’s quite a list and we’ve got more to come!

We’ve tried to make our website a place to help you Journey back to an Age of Aces by not only featuring content about our books—the authors we’ve published and artist we’ve printed, but also other aspects of the old air pulps that don’t make it into our books as well—The pulp covers and the stories behind them, the lives of the aces in pictures, and their most thrilling sky fights!

And there’s free fiction Fridays when we frequently post stories that can be downloaded and read! Since it’s our tenth year we’re trying to have more frequent content up on the site and more stories—trying to increase from one or two a month to practically every Friday—and from the authors we’ve published as well as recurring website favorites—Joe Archibald’s Phineas Pinkham and Lt. Frank Johnson’s Silent Orth.

So stop back often to journey back and here’s hoping for 10 more great years bringing you the best of old air pulps in a new package!

IF YOU can’t make it to PulpFest in Columbus this weekend, you can still get copies of our new books online from the usual outlets. Both of our new books—Frederick C. Painton’s Squadron of the Dead and Donald E. Keyhoe’s Captain Philip Strange: Strange Spectres—are now available to order online from Adventure House, Mike Chomko Books and Amazon!

While you’re waiting for the books to arrive, why not check out some of the extras we’ve put on line for each book to whet your appetite. For Painton’s Squadron of the Dead we’ve posted the original pulp scans from Sky Birds magazine of the opening page art so you can see how it would have looked if you were reading the stories back in 1935 when they were originally published. You can also read the opening of the stories in the scans. Orignally we had posted a few of the Squadron of the Dead stories on our site—we had enjoyed them so much that we we had found all eight stories we decided to collect them into a book. The first one is still available here if you want to sample the book.

For the latest release of the weird World War I adventures of Donald E. Keyhoe’s Captain Philip Strange we have the original full page scans of the opening artwork for each of the six stories collected in Strange Spectres! For the last few volumes we’ve only been posting cropped artwork, this is the first time we’re posting the full page scan so you can read a bit of story and enjoy Eugene M. Frandzen’s art in all its glory from the pages of Flying Aces magazine. Painton’s Squadron also uses Frandzen’s art, but here in the bedsheet sized issues of Flying Aces you get those glorious painted images Frandzen would do—much better than his line art.

And the piece de resistance of any Strange book—Chris’ great cutout artwork he does for each of the stories! There are only six this time—but they’re all winners. You can check them out on the Strange Spectres Design page!

Both books are available for $16.99 wherever our books are sold, so pick up both today! You can order online from Adventure House, Mike Chomko Books and Amazon!

Age of Aces will be back at PulpFest again this year where we will be debuting our two new titles!

First, we have the lastest in our Captain Philip Strange series—back with six more weird WWI stories in Strange Spectres! A mental marvel from birth, who used his talents on stage as a boy, Philip Strange is now known as “The Phantom Ace of G-2″ by the Allies during WWI. “Horrors of war” takes on a whole new meaning when WWI erupts with paranormal activity: Flaming planes piloted by charred skeletons; Battleship crews that mysteriously vanish; Medieval knights falling from the sky; The spirit of the Red Baron himself haunting the frontlines! When World War I gets weird, only America’s own “Phantom Ace of G-2” has a ghost of a chance against the supernatural slaughter. Captain Philip Strange in his strangest cases yet from the pages of Flying Aces magazine!

Our other title is from the pen of Frederick Painton, a prolific pulp author and venerated newspaper man. We’ve collected eight of his stories that ran in the pages of Sky Birds magazine in 1935 and are publishing them under the title Squadron of the Dead. The Squadron of the Dead contained all the hellions of ten armies! Men without hope; men courting death; men who loved to kill; men who laughed and fought, drank and cursed, lived hard, and died harder. Americans, British, Russians—even Germans—made up their ranks, and only one bond held them together: Death lay ahead of them. They were assigned the grim missions no other squadron dared to take—for they had all been condemned to die!

Painton’s Squadron of the Dead is a departure from our usual titles that feature a scrappy band of aviators flying through various adventures. Each of the eight stories in Painton’s Squadron of the Dead is the story of a different pilot who has been condemned to death and sent to the squadron to serve out his sentence. And die they did, dropping spies, bombing impossible places, strafing infantry for harassed Allied battalions. These men flew recklessly, savagely, knowing they could live again only when death really claimed them. Then their names would shine once again in the casualty announcements and they would be posthumously awarded the Legion d’Honneur.

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Columbus for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

Yes! The fourth in our series of themed stories of Donald E. Keyhoe’s Captain Philip Strange is now available! The book premiered at PulpFest this month, and although we had copies there, our printer informed us there was a problem with the files and one of the spreads needed to be tweeked and resubmitted.

This time around Captain Philp Strange faces off against seven of Germany’s Strangest Staffels! America’s enemies have assembled squadrons of flying furies, exploding skeletons, and invisible airplanes to turn the tide of the First World War. From the backalleys of Paris to the skies over Germany, Strange finds high-flying fortresses above the clouds, cursed aerodromes, strafing skulls, and other wild weapons of mass destruction!

Strange Staffels, like all Age of Aces Books, can be order from Adventure House, Mike Chomko Books, and, of course, Amazon!

This year at PulpFest we’ll be premiering our latest two volumes. Both are from the pen of Donald E. Keyhoe, noted aviator, author, and ufologist. In 1931, Keyhoe created a number of long-running characters for as many aviation pulps. There was Philip Strange in Flying Aces; The Devil Dog Squadron in Sky Birds; and The Jailbird Flight for Popular Publication’s Battle Aces.

With The Jailbird Flight: Dead Man’s Drome, we reprint the first seven stories of Keyhoe’s condemed suicide squadron that ran in Battle Aces in 1931 and ‘32. Hand picked from the bowels of Blois, saved from a living death, outcasts—all of them—branded with the convict’s arrow. Braving danger with the recklessness of men who know they are doomed to die! They are dishonored war eagles who chose a chance to die in action rather than rot behind prison bars. Hot tempers, liquor, and the madness of war had brought them low—but beneath it all they still were men!

The Flight, at is core, is comprised of Bruce Kirby—Below the Rio Grande he had once been known as “The Killer,” now he flew through hell skies, leader of the strangest squadron that ever dared face death from flaming Spandaus; “Big” Durgin, the hugest Jailbird of all, a mountain of a man with pile-driver fists and a fierce, battered face that masked the gruff kindness beneath his hard exterior; “Tiger” Haight, whose dark eyes ever smoldered as at some hateful memory, perhaps of the day which had turned his hair to silver, though he was but thirty—no one knew his past—no questions were asked in the Jailbird Flight; Cartwright, the tall, urbane Englishman who looked like a British lord; the lanky Tinker with his drawling humor and comical, homely face; and last and by no means least—Kid Denison who reminded Kirby of his ill-fated young brother who had been brutally sacrificed by a drug-mad S.C.!

We also have our fourth collection of Captain Philip Strange—Strange Staffels! America’s enemies have assembled squadrons of flying furies, exploding skeletons, and invisible airplanes to turn the tide of the First World War. But when things get weird, we get Strange. Captain Philip Strange, that is—ace pilot and so-called “Brain-Devil” of G-2 Intelligence. His assignment? Journey from the backalleys of Paris to the skies over Germany, taking down flying fortresses, cursed aerodromes, strafing skulls, and other wild weapons of mass destruction!

In addition to these two volumes we’ll have all of our other titles that are still in print as well as our convention exclusive—Arch Whitehouse’s Coffin Kirk. So if you’re planning on coming to Columbus for PulpFest this year, stop by our table and say hi and pick up our latest releases!

The Strange Enemy of our new book Captain Philip Strange: Strange Enemies, Fraulein Doktor, pops up in the oddest places. Here she is causing trouble in Frederick C Painton’s “Soft Thunder” a year and a half before her first appearance in Donald Keyhoe’s Philip Strange stories.

We’ve posted a number of Frederick C. Painton’s stories in this space already including a few of his Dirty Dozen-esque Squadron of the Dead stories. He’s a great writer with a background in newspapers as this short autobiography from the April 1942 issue of Blue Book Magazine attests:

Click to enlarge in a new window.

Unfortunately he died of a heart attack on a Guam airfield while covering the Pacific war.

He was just a kid who played Tennis to those two hard-boiled soldiers—but there was stuff in his make-up that kept him battling in the flaming skies. It was a grim game they played—they stuck to the rules and played like sports, but they knew that the loser would find flying death. And then into their game kited a kid who seemed soft—but there is lightning with even soft thunder.

• Download “Soft Thunder” (December 1932, Sky Fighters)

We have more of Chris Kalb’s great splash page designs for the second volume of our Captain Philip Strange series. It was hard to pare it down to only three, so we’re throwing in a bonus wallpaper and making it four! So we have the cross-shapped daggers raining down from Devil’s Bait; Strange vs the giant black Zeppelin of Raid of The Red Reaper; the flame belching U-boat of Dromes of Hades; and the the Bat Staffel itself from Drome of the Bat Staffel! Of course you can check out all of Chris’ designs from Strange Enemies on the Strange Enemies Design page!

They are available in our Age of Aces Desktops Gallery in a variety of aspect ratios—pick the one that best suits your computer!

 
 
The latest volume of our Captain Philip Strange series collects the eight stories featuring Philip Strange’s strangest enemy—Fraulein Doktor. The good Doktor is Germany’s loveliest spy and an instructor of spies in Antwerp. But they had a history together—a history from before the war. For before she had become Fraulein Doktor, she was Karol von Marlow—a slender, dark-eyed girl on a small Mecklenberg estate on a fragrant June night where a young Philip Strange had been given refuge…

    Strange did not hear the rest. He was back in the year before the war—a frightened youngster, pursued from Berlin by a money-grubbing uncle. A scene in Mecklenburg, a hideout from the police inspired by the uncle’s posted reward. An injury to his ankle, and a German who had taken him in at his small estate. A kindly man, Herr von Marlow, and his lovely French wife. And there had been a daughter, a slender, dark-eyed girl, his one bright memory of those unhappy days.

    There had been a bond between them. She, too, spoke several languages, but it had been more than that, this bond. They had written frequently—and then the war had come. He had not forgotten. In his desk at his Chaumont retreat was a small picture of a dark-eyed girl, smiling. On the back, words had been written by a feminine hand:

    “To Philip, in memory of happy days—Karol von Marlow.”

    Fate had played them a scurvy trick. By a hideous mistake, the parents of Karol von Marlow had been shot as spies by the French. Fired by desire for vengeance, she had offered herself as an agent. The flame of revenge had died, he knew, but not until she had become the famous Fraulein Doktor, noted alike for her daring and her skill as a teacher of spies.

    That same mocking Fate had made him an enemy, cursed by the Boche as the “Brain-Devil of G-2,” with a price of twenty-five thousand gold marks upon his head.

Somehow the “Brain-Devil of G-2″ and Fraulein Doktor manage to help one another avoid death or capture and still fulfill their respective missions while keeping just this side of treason. In one of the stories, Strange is Court Martialed for his perceived assistance of the enemy! They both still hold their love for one another in their hearts, even though this may be in conflict with their loyalty to their countries.

    A bloody war lay between them—but some day, when it was over, they would meet again…