The Golden Ape — Milton Lesser

How could this man awaken with no past -- no childhood -- no recollection except of a vague world of terror from which his mother cried out for vengeance and the slaughter of his own people stood as a monument of infamy?

"The Golden Ape" has a hero, Bram Forest, a protagonist of majestic proportions, who can walk without apology beside the immortal John Carter. The story is set in the fabulous world of Tarth, where, on the Plains of Ofrid, Bram seeks to uncover age-old secrets; where he seeks the identity of Portox, meets Jlomec the Gentle, Retoc the Abarian Scourge, and is found by Ylia, the beautiful brown-skinned virgin who can tell Bram of the horrible manner in which his mother died. The action moves around The Great Clock of Tarth to the Ice Fields, where the strange Chameleon Man, a seeming phantom, faces the terrible whip swords of the Abarians.

"The Golden Ape" is a great story in the fast-vanishing tradition of magnificent heroes and titanic planet-spanning concepts.

Includes the bonus novellete "The Exquisite Nudes": These strange, beautiful creatures came from an alien world. They looked like statues and dressed like statues but they acted like -- well…

Originally published as by Adam Chase, a pen name of Milton Lesser. Lesser, after several years writing science fiction under his given name legally adopted the pen name Stephen Marlowe. He authored more than fifty novels, including nearly two dozen featuring globe-trotting private eye Chester Drum.