A MYSTERIOUS "FALL-OUT" PARALYZES CIVILIZATION! Mayfield was the typical college town. Nothing too unusual ever happened there until a mysterious comet was suddenly observed by the scientists on College Hill. The copper-yellow glow of the comet seemed to have brought the whole world to a grinding halt.
The Solar League ambassador to the Lone Star Planet has the unenviable task of convincing New Texans that a s'Srauff attack is imminent, and dangerous. Unfortunately it's common knowledge that the s'Srauff are evolved from canine ancestors--and not a Texan alive is about to be scared of a talking dog! But unless he can get them to act, and fast, there won't be a Texan alive, scared or otherwise!
Conan joins with Belit, the magnificent pirate queen, whose fathers were the kings of Askalon! There is a frightening conflict with a monster winged ape before the sorrowful passing of the Queen of the Black Coast. She who belonged to the sea; to its everlasting mystery he returned her.Queen of the Black Coast also contains a second Conan story -- The Vale of Lost Women, in which the massive Cimmerian rescues the girl Livia from her barbarous captors.
In my position as head inspector in the FPD department at Washington, urged on by the desire, which has always been very strong in me, to investigate and understand everything which is mysterious, I naturally became much interested in these remarkable occurrences. And as I have been employed by the government in important affairs and secret missions since I was a lad, it also happened naturally that the head of my department placed In my charge this astonishing mysterious investigation.
The last enemy was the toughest of all--and conquering him was in itself almost as dangerous as not conquering. For a strange pattern of beliefs can make assassination an honorable profession!
"Kor was... is. God. Knowledge." He had tried to convey this to the small creatures who had invaded his world, but they did not heed. Their ill-equipped brains were trying futilely to comprehend the ancient race memory of his people. Now they would attempt further to discover the forbidden directives of Kor. Horng remembered, somewhere far back in the fossil layers of his thoughts, a warning. They must be stopped! If he had to, he would stamp out these creatures who were called "humans."
At 4 a. m., a ray of light had been observed on the disc of the planet Mars in or near the "terminator"; that is to say, the zone of twilight separating day from night. The news was doubly interesting to me, because a singular dream of "Sunrise in the Moon" had quickened my imagination as to the wonders of the universe beyond our little globe, and because of a never-to-be-forgotten experience of mine with an aged astronomer several years ago.