Uncanny Tales #180

When Mars, consumed by envy, grants the golden touch of King Midas to the meek Professor Leonard Lambie, the once-quiet man is transformed—literally and figuratively—into a force of greed and power. Now emboldened by divine favor and joined by the enigmatic Zoloto, Lambie sets his sights on the Son of Vulcan, turning a personal grudge into a deadly vendetta. With Venus, Jupiter, and the ancient Giant Gladiator watching from myth’s shadow, the fate of the golden curse hangs in the balance.

Amanda Dalton is accused of witchcraft by Evelyn, driven by old grudges over a man she once loved—John Redmond. Though John stands by her, Amanda refuses his proposal, leaving their bond uncertain. As tensions rise, the truth of the accusations begins to surface in ways no one expected.

Captain Marston and his crew find themselves adrift in the Sargasso Sea when an unexpected salvage operation begins—unexplained currents pull their ship toward a mysterious, long-lost rocketship that quietly siphons fuel from their cargo, then guides them to safety.

In "Mission On Earth," a reclusive fantasy writer finds himself at the center of an otherworldly experiment when alien visitors arrive, seeking to understand human emotions so they can blend in undetected. As he guides them through the spectrum of feeling, he grapples with the weight of what knowledge might unleash—especially when he carefully introduces ambition and power, hoping to steer them toward self-destruction rather than humanity’s.

In a tense moment along the divided East German border, a man driven by desperation makes a chilling pact with a figure he believes to be an Allied soldier—only to realize too late that the man he’s been watching is not alive at all. The story unfolds with quiet dread, turning a desperate act of betrayal into a haunting meditation on isolation and illusion.

Professor Bayler and Chal return from a deep-space mission only to discover their home planet is not as they remember—closer, brighter, and eerily perfect. What begins as a routine landing quickly unravels into a startling revelation: Earth, as they knew it, was never the real thing.