FFB: Earth's Last Citadel -- C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner

A while back I linked to this "Vintage Treasures" post on about Earth's Last Citadel on Black Gate.  After reading the post, I felt the need to read the book again, not having read it in a long, long time. 

The premise is goofy enough to entice anybody.  In the midst of WWII (The Big One) an American agent is rescuing a famous Scottish scientist in North Africa. They're being pursued by a couple of Nazi agents, one of them a beautiful woman, when they find themselves transferred a billion years into the future, at just about the end of time on Earth.  What's left of the human race is doomed unless the four time-travelers can save it.  

There's a lot of the old sense-of-wonder pulpiness here, including an alien villain who's made of pure energy and who's a psychic vampire, an amazing city at the end of time, an underground civilization of primitive types, and more.  There's purple prose.  There's a stalwart hero.  There's a lot of action.  If you're looking for character development and subtlety, you're in the wrong place.  It's all good, pulpy fun, though, if you're in the right mood for that kind of entertainment, and sometimes i am.  It's also very short, which is another virtue I appreciate.

Here's a description that I found interesting.  Mike is one of the Nazis, and here's how he looks at one point. "Mike's [clothing] had not been mended at all.  He stood there straddle-legged, a figure of strong bronze, his blunt features restrained to an impassivity more revealing than any scowl."  Is it just me, or does this remind anybody else of a famous pulp figure?  Probably just me, and a coincidence to boot.