Captain Philip Strange: Strange Enemies

Captain Philip Strange

by Donald E. Keyhoe

Welcome to a Strange War! In Donald E. Keyhoe’s imaginings, the stormy skies of World War I are filled with giant pterodactyls, mystic fireballs and demon aces. But America has it’s own unnatural secret Captain Philip Strange. A mental marvel from birth, he was so terrifyingly effective that the Allies referred to him as “The Phantom Ace of G-2.” But to the Germans he was “The Brain-Devil,” whose penetrating green eyes were both a legend and a nightmare. Keyhoe’s Philip Strange stories ran for nine years—from 1931 through 1939—in the pages of Flying Aces magazine. This first volume in our new series contains six exciting tales of terror skies! It also features an introduction by Sid Bradd and is beautifully wrapped up in an exciting new design by Chris Kalb!

Paperback

First published July 31, 2012

About the author

Donald Edward Keyhoe (June 20, 1897 – November 29, 1988) was an American Marine Corps naval aviator and writer of aviation articles and stories. In the 1950s, Keyhoe became a UFO researcher and writer, arguing that the U.S. government should conduct research into UFO matters, and should publicly release all its UFO files. [Wikipedia]

Reviews

[Ralph · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I mentioned in my previous review of Strange War, those who know Donald Keyhoe only from his numerous books and articles about flying saucers will be very surprised by the contents of this book. The stories in Strange Enemies action-filled pulse-pounding red-blooded tales from the aviation pulp magazines of the mid-1930s, and recount the adventures of Captain Philip Strange, the so-called "Brain Devil of G-2," during the First World War. Where the tales in the first book focused on the strange and weird aspects of the Great War (pterodactyls, mystery zeppelins, unknown poisons, etc), this latest volume brings Captain Strange's many adversaries center stage, especially the enigmatic and beautiful German Spymaster Karol von Marlow, known to all as Fraulein Doktor, whom Strange loved before the War...and still does. Although the stories were separately published over a three-year period, and each stands very well on its own, they do form something of a loosely connected narrative as characters and plotlines slip in and out, from story to story. While the characters are well developed for the genre of the times, it is the intense aerial action that is worth the price of admission, and where Keyhoe demonstrates his expertise of every aspect of aviation and air combat.