Publisher's Synopsis
The Metal Monster follows a group of botanists who discover the seemingly reanimated Darius III of Persia and legions of soldiers. The group is saved by a mysterious woman, Norhala. Seemingly magical, Norhala inhabits a hidden city and controls strange metal automatons capable of joining together and forming colossal monsters, each possessing powerful weapons fully capable of defeating all the armies on Earth. Abraham Grace Merritt - known by his byline, A. Merritt - was an American Sunday magazine editor and a writer of fantastic fiction. Merritt's writings were heavily influenced by H. Rider Haggard, Robert W. Chambers, Helena Blavatsky and Gertrude Barrows Bennett, with Merritt having "emulated Bennett's earlier style and themes." His stories typically revolve around conventional pulp magazine themes: lost civilizations, hideous monsters, etc. His heroes are gallant Irishmen or Scandinavians, his villains treacherous Germans or Russians and his heroines often virginal, mysterious and scantily clad. What sets Merritt apart from the typical pulp author, however, is his lush, florid prose style and his exhaustive, at times exhausting, penchant for adjective-laden detail. Merritt's fondness for micro-description nicely complements the pointillistic style of Bok's illustrations. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Merritt in 1999.