Thirty Pieces of Silver

Thirty Pieces of Silver

Known as one of the most memorable authors writing for Weird Tales magazine in the 1920s and ’30s, Gladys G. Trenery (G.G. Pendarves) also wrote fascinating tales of adventure set in Arabia, published in the pages of Weird Tales’ short-lived companion magazine, Oriental Stories, which have remained uncollected until now. First and foremost, let’s make one fact perfectly clear: these aren’t your grandmother’s nicey-nice pulp stories. The kind of stories with a handsome prince, a beautiful princess, a castle in the desert, a band of singing Arab horsemen all dressed in white and a nasty dragon. This is fantastic fiction about the Middle East and Arab tribesmen and beautiful women and even a princess or two. But, they’re not characters that stepped out of a romantic painting. These are not pleasant people. They are mean, murderous killers who would slit your throat for a dime—or sometimes just to see the color of your blood. These stories are hardboiled desert fiction. They’re film noir on paper. And not all of the endings are happy ones. Most of all, these are vivid, unusual, unique stories— stories that will catch you by surprise!