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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the metal before you could move, think, and pursue aims you cannot understand?
In Abraham Merritt’s The Metal Monster, botanist Walter Goodwin travels into the remote mountains of Asia. Trained to trust evidence, he encounters something his science cannot explain: living metal. Far from ordinary roads, his careful eye becomes our guide to a world of wonder and dread.
Goodwin shares the mystery with capable Richard Drake and brave, clear-headed Ruth Ventnor. Then there is Norhala, a strange woman who seems at home among the metal beings. Her powers and purposes resist understanding. As the travellers face the unknown, the limits of human knowledge become more than an abstract question.
What you’ll discover
- Metal that seems alive Encounter the book’s central marvel: metal that moves and seems to think.
- A scientist beyond certainty Follow Goodwin as close observation meets things his training cannot explain.
- Companions in the unknown Meet Drake and Ruth, whose courage and loyalty give the strange journey a human centre.
- The mystery of Norhala Watch a woman move among living metal with an ease her companions cannot share.
- A world of shifting light Enter Merritt’s richly coloured scenes, where glitter and sound bring the impossible close.
Who will love it
Readers who love lost-world adventure, early science fiction, and big ideas about life and machines will feel at home here. Vivid landscapes and a growing mystery reward anyone who enjoys tales of the unknown.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Grief leads Goodwin toward strange life
- Two dangers close around the travelers
- Small metal shapes reveal living minds
- Norhala saves through terrifying violence
- The Emperor treats people as specimens
- Ventnor warns of a new claimant
- The living city feeds on sunlight
- Perfect peace threatens human feeling
- Human rule carries no lasting guarantee
Who’s who
- Walter GoodwinA botanist and the narrator, who explains the unexplainable and tries to keep calm while the world he knows gives way.
- Richard DrakeA young engineer just back from the war in France, brave and cheerful, who trusts his gut and loves Ruth.
- Martin VentnorAn anthropologist and Ruth's brother, an expert in Persian, who watches closely and fights to protect his sister.
- Ruth VentnorMartin's lively, quick sister, who senses the strange early and is the one the alien force tries to claim.
- NorhalaA veiled woman of unearthly beauty who commands lightning and the metal beings, and seeks an old vengeance.
- YurukNorhala's ancient black servant, jealous of any human who comes near her and worshipful of her.
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The Metal Monster in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
The Metal Monster
by Abraham Merritt · 1920
A botanist in Tibet meets a footprint two hundred feet long and a living metal that thinks.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“Metal with a brain!”
In short
What would you do if a ray of sunset light snapped like a thread, and the next day you found a footprint two hundred feet long pressed into a mountain slope? Dr. Walter Goodwin, a botanist, faces exactly that in a valley of blue poppies in Tibet.
The Metal Monster at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 30 min4 h 25 min fast, 6 h 35 min slow
- Length
- 79,000 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1920by Abraham Merritt
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A grieving man finds a friend among poppies
Goodwin opens his tale in July, camped in a valley carpeted with blue poppies. He has wandered since March through Persia and the high ranges, trying to dull a sorrow that followed him home. His companion is Chiu-Ming, a Chinese man who cooks better than anyone within ten thousand miles of Pekin.
Then a young American strides down a brown hillside. He is Richard Drake, a giant of an engineer fresh from the war in France. Over supper the two men take to each other at once.
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Details
- First published
- 1920
- Language
- English
- Level
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Cite this edition
Merritt, Abraham. The Metal Monster. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-metal-monster.
Merritt, A. (2026). The metal monster. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-metal-monster (Original work published 1920)
Merritt, Abraham. The Metal Monster. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-metal-monster.
@book{merritt2026metal,
author = {Merritt, Abraham},
title = {The Metal Monster},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-metal-monster},
note = {First published 1920}
}
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What is The Metal Monster about?
A botanist traveling in Tibet finds a giant footprint, lost Persian soldiers, and a hidden valley where living beings made of metal build a city. With three friends and a mysterious woman named Norhala, he learns what they are.
Who is Norhala in The Metal Monster?
Norhala is a tall woman with copper hair and star-flecked eyes who speaks ancient Persian and commands lightning and the metal beings. She seems half human and half something far older, and she has a past of her own.
Who wrote The Metal Monster and when?
Abraham Merritt wrote it as a work of fiction after the First World War. It is told as the account of Dr. Walter Goodwin, a botanist, and it belongs to the early days of American science fiction.
The author
Abraham Merritt
1884–1943 · American fantasy writer
Abraham Merritt (1884–1943) was an American writer and journalist. He was born in Beverly, New Jersey, and worked in Philadelphia and New York City. He wrote fantasy and science fiction. The Moon Pool appeared in 1919, and The Metal Monster in 1920. He also edited The American Weekly.
“Metal with a brain!”
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