The Best Science Fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle — Multiple Authors

In �"The Horror of the Heights,” aviator Joyce-Armstrong continually asks, �"And where, pray, is Lt. Myrtle's head?” At 43,000 feet, beset by creatures of an air jungle, Joyce-Armstrong, to his immense regret, learns exactly what happened to Myrtle's head. In �"The American's Tale” a quiet Englishman and an American bully tangle. Only one survives, and the cause of death is not human. A crowd of people in �"The Lift” finds itself at the mercy of a fanatic who decides he is an avenging Jehovah. In �"The Great Brown-Pericord Motor,” two inventors devise a wonderful machine� -- but greed intercedes.

Two Sherlock Holmes stories confront crime with Holmes's customary brilliance and Watson's humbling help: �"The Adven­ture of the Devil's Foot” and �"The Adventure of the Creeping Man.” And two stories involving Professor Challenger who is Sherlock Holmes writ gigantic and outrageous: �"When the World Screamed” and �"The Disintegration Machine.” Chal­lenger is an arrogant genius, but on the side of right.

In �"Through the Veil,” a man and his wife face death when they slip from their own time to another, more primitive life. �"The Los Amigos Fiasco” features an attempt by the town of Los Amigos to electrocute the evil Duncan Warner. But the deadly volts come as a wondrous gift to the man the execu­tioners thought they could kill. �"The Great Keinplatz Experi­ment” tells a droll tale of the chaos that ensues when the spirit of a drunken, irresolute student enters the body of a grave pro­fessor and the student receives the spirit of the professor.

�"The Terror of Blue John Gap” tells of a blind, brute force loosed upon the world through a tunnel dug by the ancient Romans. �"The Last Galley” shows Carthage's fall to Rome, tells of a seer who predicts that Rome, too, will fall. �"Danger” is an action story warning Britain, showing how Captain Sirius, with the world's smallest navy of submarines, literally starves mighty Britain into submission.