Reign of the Gila Monster

In a tale set against the color of the legendary American west, Howdy Johnson relieves the town of its murderous sheriff—called the “Gila Monster” because of his formidable size—but loses his life in the lethal exchange of gunfire. Or does he?

Reign of the Gila Monster SELECTED FICTION WORKS BYL. RON HUBBARDFANTASYThe Case of the Friendly CorpseDeath’s DeputyFearThe GhoulThe Indigestible TritonSlaves of Sleep & The Masters of SleepTypewriter in the SkyThe Ultimate AdventureSCIENCE FICTIONBattlefield EarthThe Conquest of SpaceThe End Is Not YetFinal BlackoutThe Kilkenny CatsThe KingslayerThe Mission Earth Dekalogy*Ole Doc MethuselahTo the StarsADVENTUREThe Hell Job seriesWESTERNBuckskin BrigadesEmpty SaddlesGuns of Mark JardineHot Lead PayoffA full list of L. Ron Hubbard’s novellas and short stories is provided at the back.*Dekalogy—a group of ten volumes REIGN OFTHEGILA MONSTER L.RONHUBBARD Published byGalaxy Press, LLC7051 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 200Hollywood, CA 90028© 2007 L. Ron Hubbard Library. All Rights Reserved. Any unauthorized copying, translation, duplication, importation or distribution, in whole or in part, by any means, including electronic copying, storage or transmission, is a violation of applicable laws. Mission Earth is a trademark owned by L. Ron Hubbard Library andis used with permission. Battlefield Earth is a trademark ownedby Author Services, Inc. and is used with permission. Cover art, Horsemen illustration and glossary illustration from Wes ter n Stor y Magazine are © and ™ Condé Nast Publications and are used with their permission. Fantasy, Far-Flung Adventure and Science Fiction illustrations: Unknown and Astounding Science Fiction copyright © by Street & Smith Publications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Penny Publications, LLC.ISBN 978-1-59212-854-9 PDF eBook editionISBN 978-1-59212-830-3 ePub edition ContentsFOREWORD viiREIGN OF THE GILA MONSTER 1GLOSSARY 31L. RON HUBBARD IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF PULP FICTION 35THE STORIES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE 47 viiviiAND it was a golden age.The 1930s and 1940s were a vibrant, seminal time fora gigantic audience of eager readers, probably the largest percapita audience of readers in American history. The magazineracks were chock-full of publications with ragged trims, garishcover art, cheap brown pulp paper, low cover prices—and themost excitement you could hold in your hands.“Pulp” magazines, named for their rough-cut, pulpwoodpaper, were a vehicle for more amazing tales than Scheherazadecould have told in a million and one nights. Set apart fromhigher-class “slick” magazines, printed on fancy glossy paperwith quality artwork and superior production values, thepulps were for the “rest of us,” adventure story after adventurestory for people who liked to read. Pulp fiction authors wereno-holds-barred entertainers—real storytellers. They weremore interested in a thrilling plot twist, a horrific villain ora white-knuckle adventure than they were in lavish prose orconvoluted metaphors.The sheer volume of tales released during this wondrousgolden age remains unmatched in any other period of literaryhistory—hundreds of thousands of published stories in overnine hundred dierent magazines. Some titles lasted only anFOREWORDStories from Pulp Fiction’s Golden Age viii♦ FOREWORD♦ viiiiFOREWORDiissue or two; many magazines succumbed to paper shortagesduring World War II, while others endured for decadesyet. Pulp fiction remains as a treasure trove of stories youcan read, stories you can love, stories you can remember.The stories were driven by plot and character, with grandheroes, terrible villains, beautiful damsels (often in distress),diabolical plots, amazing places, breathless romances. Thereaders wanted to be taken beyond the mundane, to liveadventures far removed from their ordinary lives—and thepulps rarely failed to deliver.In that regard, pulp fiction stands in the tradition of allmemorable literature. For as history has shown, good storiesare much more than fancy prose. William Shakespeare,Charles Dickens, Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas—many of thegreatest literary figures wrote their fiction for the readers, notsimply literary colleagues and academic admirers. And writersfor pulp magazines were no exception. These publicationsreached an audience that dwarfed the circulations of today’sshort story magazines. Issues of the pulps were scooped upand read by over thirty million avid readers each month.Because pulp fiction writers were often paid no more thana cent a word, they had to become prolific or starve. Theyalso had to write aggressively. As Richard Kyle, publisher andeditor of Argosy, the first and most long-lived of the pulps, sopointedly explained: “The pulp magazine writers, the bestof them, worked for markets that did not write for critics orattempt to satisfy timid advertisers. Not having to answerto anyone other than their readers, they wrote about human . Reign of the Gila Monster SELECTED FICTION WORKS BYL. RON HUBBARDFANTASYThe Case of the Friendly CorpseDeath’s DeputyFearThe GhoulThe Indigestible. TritonSlaves of Sleep & The Masters of SleepTypewriter in the SkyThe Ultimate AdventureSCIENCE FICTIONBattlefield EarthThe Conquest of SpaceThe End Is