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The Spider #4: City of Flaming Shadows
The Flaming Shadows fell upon the city, shrouding whole neighborhoods in a fiery gloom—wherein walked screaming death and merciless destruction… Go with the Spider as he battles, single-handedly, the Flaming Shadows—to save the very people who pray for his destruction!
236 pages, Paperback
Published January 31, 2019
5 people want to read
About the author
Norvell W. Page
212 books14 followersNorvell Wordsworth Page (1904–1961) was an American pulp fiction writer, journalist and editor who later became a government intelligence worker.
He was born in Virginia the son of Charles Wordsworth Page (1880 – 1947) and Estlie Isabelle Bethel Page (1880 – 1946). The name Norvell came from his maternal grandmother Elvira Russell Norvell Page.
He is best known as the author of the majority of the adventures of the ruthless vigilante hero The Spider, which he and a handful of other writers wrote under the house name of Grant Stockbridge. He also contributed to other pulp series, including The Shadow and The Phantom, and supplied scripts for the radio programs based on the characters he wrote, science fiction and two early sword and sorcery fantasy novels under forms of his real name, Norvel Page and Norvell W. Page. His 1940 Unknown novel, But Without Horns is considered an early classic explication of the superman theme. Under the pen name of N. Wooten Poge, Page wrote the adventures of Bill Carter for Spicy Detective Stories. His works only saw magazine publication during his lifetime, but his fantasies and some of the Spider novels were later reprinted as paperbacks.
The Spider was a crime-fighter in the tradition of The Shadow, wanted by the law for executing his criminal antagonists, and prefigured later comic book superheroes like Batman. Page's innovations to the series included a hideous disguise for the hero and a succession of super-scientific menaces for him to combat. One of these, involving an invasion of giant robots, was copied by an early Superman story and helped inspire the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
The setting of Page's sword and sorcery novels is central Asia in the first century A.D., when the legendary Prester John supposedly established a Christian kingdom there. In Page's conception, the man behind the legend was hard-bitten Mediterranean adventurer Hurricane John, or Wan Tengri, a hero in the mold of Robert E. Howard's Conan, though more humorous, verbose, and exaggeratedly omnicompetent as a warrior. He comes close to taking over two cities in the course of his travels, but the series concludes before he establishes his empire. He was featured two stories Flame Winds and Sons of the Bear God. The magic John encounters is unconvincingly rationalized
He was born in Virginia the son of Charles Wordsworth Page (1880 – 1947) and Estlie Isabelle Bethel Page (1880 – 1946). The name Norvell came from his maternal grandmother Elvira Russell Norvell Page.
He is best known as the author of the majority of the adventures of the ruthless vigilante hero The Spider, which he and a handful of other writers wrote under the house name of Grant Stockbridge. He also contributed to other pulp series, including The Shadow and The Phantom, and supplied scripts for the radio programs based on the characters he wrote, science fiction and two early sword and sorcery fantasy novels under forms of his real name, Norvel Page and Norvell W. Page. His 1940 Unknown novel, But Without Horns is considered an early classic explication of the superman theme. Under the pen name of N. Wooten Poge, Page wrote the adventures of Bill Carter for Spicy Detective Stories. His works only saw magazine publication during his lifetime, but his fantasies and some of the Spider novels were later reprinted as paperbacks.
The Spider was a crime-fighter in the tradition of The Shadow, wanted by the law for executing his criminal antagonists, and prefigured later comic book superheroes like Batman. Page's innovations to the series included a hideous disguise for the hero and a succession of super-scientific menaces for him to combat. One of these, involving an invasion of giant robots, was copied by an early Superman story and helped inspire the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
The setting of Page's sword and sorcery novels is central Asia in the first century A.D., when the legendary Prester John supposedly established a Christian kingdom there. In Page's conception, the man behind the legend was hard-bitten Mediterranean adventurer Hurricane John, or Wan Tengri, a hero in the mold of Robert E. Howard's Conan, though more humorous, verbose, and exaggeratedly omnicompetent as a warrior. He comes close to taking over two cities in the course of his travels, but the series concludes before he establishes his empire. He was featured two stories Flame Winds and Sons of the Bear God. The magic John encounters is unconvincingly rationalized
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 21, 2019
Volume four in this latest Spider series!
The Spider is Richard Wentworth, a wealthy criminologist. Backed up by his manservant Ram Singh, his old war pal Jackson, and his fiancé Nita van Slone, Wentworth takes on crime at the street level.
The Spider has no scruples about killing. The criminals who cross the Spider die and their foreheads are marked with a scarlet spider.
The Spider is wanted by the police, and his friend Commissioner Kirkpatrick suspects Wentworth. Hardly surprising, as everyone seems to know the Spider’s secret. Proving it is another thing entirely…
City of Flaming Shadows
This story was originally published in January 1934 in The Spider Magazine.
The Tarantula is in full battle with the Spider! Cloaked in concealing black, the one identifying mark of this villain is his hands. Long thin fingers covered in thick hair, the hands look as if they are alive independent of the master crook’s body!
The Tarantula strikes by shutting down a city’s electrical grid. While light, bank alarms, telephones and such are down, the Tarantula’s gang cut their way into vaults using a powerful electrical torch. No bank is safe, not even the vaults that belong to the Federal Government!
I originally read this story early on in my discovery of the Spider novels. Only the second one created by the peerless Norvell Page; it could easily be the best of the entire series! It conceals the villain to the very last moment, and the story runs smoothly and at breakneck speed! If you like pulp fiction, you’ll enjoy this one I am sure!
I give this excellent adventure five stars plus! Wow!
Quoth the Raven…
The Spider is Richard Wentworth, a wealthy criminologist. Backed up by his manservant Ram Singh, his old war pal Jackson, and his fiancé Nita van Slone, Wentworth takes on crime at the street level.
The Spider has no scruples about killing. The criminals who cross the Spider die and their foreheads are marked with a scarlet spider.
The Spider is wanted by the police, and his friend Commissioner Kirkpatrick suspects Wentworth. Hardly surprising, as everyone seems to know the Spider’s secret. Proving it is another thing entirely…
City of Flaming Shadows
This story was originally published in January 1934 in The Spider Magazine.
The Tarantula is in full battle with the Spider! Cloaked in concealing black, the one identifying mark of this villain is his hands. Long thin fingers covered in thick hair, the hands look as if they are alive independent of the master crook’s body!
The Tarantula strikes by shutting down a city’s electrical grid. While light, bank alarms, telephones and such are down, the Tarantula’s gang cut their way into vaults using a powerful electrical torch. No bank is safe, not even the vaults that belong to the Federal Government!
I originally read this story early on in my discovery of the Spider novels. Only the second one created by the peerless Norvell Page; it could easily be the best of the entire series! It conceals the villain to the very last moment, and the story runs smoothly and at breakneck speed! If you like pulp fiction, you’ll enjoy this one I am sure!
I give this excellent adventure five stars plus! Wow!
Quoth the Raven…
March 12, 2025
This series is so good (for a pulp novel)!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews