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Adventures in the year 14 Billion.

This is the second book I've read by this author, and I don't like his style any better in this one. Many times, the main character does something and the reader is not informed of his motivation until later, or he reacts to something, and we're not told what until later, even though the story is told from his perspective, and we're in his head, so we should know these things immediately.

The last story is "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas", and this is a good adventure-archaeology story about tracking down a hidden treasure from clues in medieval stained-glass windows. And then it turns into some pre-Lovecraftian horror with a tentacled monster. I liked the valet character.

"Black Moonlight" is a Thongor story, and here he's a pirate with a crew of merry men, sailing to some island ruins to seek a treasure of pearls. When his crewmate Kanthar Kan (suspiciously similar to Kantos Kan of Barsoom) is found dead, Thongor goes alone into the jungle to find what killed him. This is better-written than anything I've read by Lin Carter before.

"Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come to You, My Lad" is just like "Number 13", with a fussy scholar experiencing a weird happening in a hotel room, and again he has the support of another character who sees what's going on. The difference is that the catalyst for the events is a strange whistle the protagonist finds.
Hilariously, James openly states within the narrative that certain early characters are entirely unimportant.

"Count Magnus" is another one that was just too scattered and unstructured. There are nice and interesting details in the story, nice premise and setting, but it just feels unfinished and unsatisfying.

"Number 13" is a bit different from the usual supernatural thriller. A phantom hotel room (Room 13) appears and disappears. But we're not left to wonder if it's all in the protagonist's head, and he's not the only one affected by it. The landlord, the man from the room next door, plus a few servants get involved, and they all see it happen right before their eyes.

"The Ash Tree" wasn't as good as the previous three, but it could have been. The idea was good, anyway. An executed witch gets her revenge on members of the family who condemned her.

"The Mezzotint" has imagery that easily could have inspired The Ring or The Grudge! This story involves an uncanny picture of a manor house, which changes when the protagonists aren't looking at it, showing a sequence of moments in time, letting them gradually witness a grotesque shrouded figure crawling toward the house, and what it does when it gets there.

"Lost Hearts" has some excellent ghost imagery, surrounding a macabre situation that the author doesn't state outright at first, but which he doesn't attempt to hide, either. We know what the uncle is doing and what he has in store for his nephew, and there's a Hitchcock style of suspense in play since the nephew *doesn't* know. But the best parts here are the two ghosts and how they manifest.

"Canon Alberich's Scrapbook" looks like it could have been an inspiration for Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model", except James here reveals early what Lovecraft saved for the end.