Farewell, Nikola

Boothbys fifth novel of five about the notorious Doctor Nikola, an occultist anti-hero seeking immortality and world domination. Nikola may be the world’s first modern super villain: he is a master of hypnotism and mind control, a telepathic adept, and an astral projectionist. He can cause ordinary men to see images in pools of liquid, and prophesy into the future. It’s said that he knows the hour, moment, and method of his own demise. “At first I came to the conclusion that it must be a bat, or some night bird, but that theory exploded. Bats do not remain at the same exact distance from the floor, nor do they stand stationary behind a man’s chair for any length of time. The hour will come, however, when it will be possible for us to see these things; I am on the track even now.” Boothby was a prolific Australian novelist and writer, noted for sensational fiction in variety magazines around the end of the nineteenth century. He lived mainly in England and is best known for such works as the Dr Nikola series; about an occultist criminal mastermind who is a Victorian forerunner to Fu Manchu, and Pharos, the Egyptian. Rudyard Kipling was his friend and mentor and his books were remembered with affection by George Orwell.