Author: jmstine

At last, the event Charles Lee Jackson II's fans have been waiting for! After chronicling the origins of half a dozen new super heroes and heroines, he once again turns his pen to the adventures of his supreme creation, The Emperor, the first superhero who worked without a costume, wearing a jacket and tie instead. Now, the man with super powers who would rather dine with a fascinating woman than fight bad guys (but watch out, bad guys, if he gets you in his sights) is back to face peril beyond imagining. In the newest installment in the Emperor saga, he journeys to four legendary cities famed for their mysteries and dangers, and finds death lurking around every corner. It's just another vacation—for the man who travels in crime!

Visiting the Bay Area, The Emperor joins Shanghai Lil to solve a series of puzzling acts of piracy. Add up a recent widow, Lombard Street, sea shanties, and Alcatraz with a new gang of criminals, and see what happens to The Emperor in San Francisco. Invited to Mardi Gras, The Emperor and Shanghai Lil are to be the king and queen of a krewe’s parade. But while they’re trying to enjoy themselves for a change, the inexplicable theft of souvenir doubloons leads to trouble for The Emperor in New Orleans. There the pair take on new villains from the mysterious gang known only as Tsodiac, unraveling the strange circumstances behind the stolen doubloons, while solving a series of ritual stranglings. Then The Emperor's visit to Lil in Seattle leads to more trouble as they investigate the serial killings of homeless people along Skid Road. But there's more to the murders than meets the eye and the trail leads to disguises, cults, deviltry and a perilous trip underground for The Emperor in Hidden City.

Plus, a bonus Emperor exploit: A brief but deadly encounter results when The Emperor rides the rails on a clandestine trip to Santa Fe to collect the last bar of CL-arium, the secret gravity-defying metal he invented. Aboard the train he and young Alison Carlson (the costumed heroine known as Shooting Star) interrupt a new masked menace, the Wizard, a man with uncanny powers, attempting to steal the CL-arium. But despite the Emperor's fast action and fast thinking, he is outwitted for once. Will there be a return match in the future…?

Charles Lee Jackson II's brainchild, The Emperorvese, with its dozens of costumed and super heroes and heroines, villains and villainesses first appeared in a series of alternative comic books in the late 1960s. Then, in the '90s, Mr. Jackson began to retell those adventures in a series of pulp novels written for a number of small press 'zines. Now, for the first time ever, the Amazing Adventures of The Emperor and its companion series, The Emperor's Secret Files—featuring his other characters like Fireball, Solara, the Titan, Shooting Star, Nemesis, and more—are at last being published in book form.

Earth's weather turned into a deadly engine of destruction against humanity!

Enemy aliens from the planet Randnar are here and they have a master plan for conquest and destruction. From blasting a hole in our vital ozone layer to creating a super-hurricane, halting the Gulf Steam, and stirring up a mega-tsunami, their campaign moves from doom to doom—Earth's doom!

It’s up to The Emperor and his fearless band of crimefighters to try to stop the worldwide ruin of civilization! The battle is so intense that The Emperor will need to call on that blonde bombshell, Solara, to help him fight the Masters of Disasters!

As a bonus, you'll also get "The Emperor Faces the Truth", a classic Emperor pulp short story from CLJII Presents, No 1, Summer 1992. Random murder attempts lead the Emperor onto the trail of a megalomaniacal fiend who controls his minions with a magical demonic mask! Then he turns its powers on the Emperor, to add our hero to his list of slaves. Has the Emperor met his match at last?

"Charles Lee Jackson's 'The Emperor' novels are fun, snappy, and a reflection of the pulp fiction that readers have read and loved for decades. Jackson couples original characters with seductive situations that will have you on the edge of your seat." —J. D. Crayne, author of How to Bonk a Zombie.

At last, the long-awaited confrontation between Joe Vadalma's greatest creations: psychic investigator, Raven Lenore, and the powerful, treacherous Morgaine, the witch.

Fans of both series will thrill to this ultimate adventure of Raven and Morgaine. The is the novel they've been waiting for! Raven Lenore must use all her wit and street smarts to defeat the demon-witch Morgaine. Many of the characters from both series are present, such as Henry Bagyar the beast; Annie B.; Michael Ellul the thousand-year-old sorcerer; Lara Borinski (Michael's second wife); Mephistopheles the magic cat; Peter Magbertius (Raven's nemesis); Lenore Raven (Raven's doppleganger)—as well as an assortment of demons, ghosts, vampires and angels, and new characters, in a heady brew of evil against good—and evil against evil, as demonic cults vie for power.

Only Raven can save the world from the horrors from the abyss!

Romance, alien space stations, white holes, interstellar smugglers—and more—highlight this enthralling short novel!

Sally and Rog are sometime lovers, but to the universe at large they're just "space bums" who ply the starways dealing in stolen antiquities, looting derelicts, and smuggling illegal goods. Though they remain friends and partners, the truth is that Rog is still in love with Sally, but Sally only loves her starship, Sally's Fantasy.

But things begin to change when they hear of a mysterious white hole that ends near a mysterious alien object. At the other end, Sally and Rog find themselves thousands of light-years outside the galaxy. The only object in view is a space station of unknown design, millions of years old, that may hold untold treasures—or sudden death. What happens there will change their lives and rekindle the passionate love for each other they had long thought could never be ignited again. ...If, that is, they somehow manage to escape with their lives.

Lost Pulp Magazine Classic Out-Tarzans Tarzan!

Out of the night sky came a winged monster, and Toka lost his loved princess and queen of Sandcliff. How could he rescue her from these horrors of far bat-land?

The never-reprinted sequel to Toka, King Of The Dinosaurs from the pages of the 1940s Fantastic Adventures. Toka and the Man Bats continues the adventures of that forgotten hero of the jungle, Toka, the caveman of Sandcliff, created by legendary science fiction pulp magazine editor and writer Raymond A. Palmer. In this novel of that wonderful cliff city in a lost world, Palmer lives up to his reputation with another fine Tarzanesque action yarn that thrills on every page.

Cover: Reproduced from the original cover for Toka and the Man Bats, Fantastic Adventures Feb. 1946.

THE GRANDMASTER OF FANTASY!

Volume II of the first ever collection of the complete short stories of A. Merritt, the supreme genius of fantasy, terror and speculation. Includes, for the first time ever, Merritt's lost story, "Pool of the Stone God."

Through the Dragon Glass & Other Masterpieces of Fantasies contains the complete text of five of A. Merritt’s greatest tales. Included are the title story, "The Fox Woman," "Three Lines of Old French," "Music of the Spheres," and "The Pool of the Stone God." Discover why Isaac Asimov hailed Merritt as "The most famous of all fantasy writers." And why the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says "his stories carry within them the true note of fear the dread of the unknown that lies latent even within civilized man. Stories that grow like the unfolding of an evil flower whose deadly fragrance is both overpoweringly sweet and hateful to the senses, to a terrific climax." Also includes "Merritt on Magic" and "Merritt on Merritt." Companion volume to The Women of the Wood and Other Stories.

Merritt weaves “A glimmering, glittering web of imagination…” —The New York Times.

Merritt's Masterwork—Over One Million Copies Sold!

Two men in one body! That's how Lief Langdon had always felt. One part of him was a modern-day adventurer, the other was a strange half-memory of a life as a High Priest sacrificing living people to Khalk'ru, a demon god from another time and place.

Then Langdon stumbled through the mirage into a hidden Arctic valley, where he fell under the spell of Evalie, as beautiful outwardly as she was inwardly, and her friends the Little People, elfin warriors constantly warring with Lur, the Witch-Woman, and her demon riders, who raided the Little People's land for sacrifices to their dark god, the Kraken.

Horrified at the thought of these sacrifices, Langdon took up the Little People's cause and wooed Evalie. But when he learned the Kraken was also known as Khalk'ru, memories of his past life—as Lur's lover and High Priest of her sect—came rushing back. Soon Langdon was fighting against his other self, a far stronger self who threatened to submerge him entirely and eagerly join Lur, to rain kisses on her lips and wield the bloody knife of sacrifice on his own best friends!

Here is a story of magic, myth and mystery from an author dubbed "A genius," by Saturday Review of Literature, whose work displayed "a fertility of imaginative resource…unique, eerie, compelling"; a thrilling, uncanny novel that inspired H. P. Lovecraft's work and has sold over one million copies in hard and soft cover—now an ebook exclusively from Futures Past Editions.

Cover art: Virgil Finlay, circa 1941

CAN A SEVEN HUNDRED YEAR OLD TRANSYLVANIAN FIND TRUE LOVE WITH A REVOLUTIONARY RYSEMIAN FISH-WOMAN?

Introduction by Theodore Sturgeon

After seven hundred years, glamorous vampire Sterling O’Blivion has begun to think the joy is going out of life. Then she meets Virginia Woolf in the ladies’ room of a dance studio in Chicago. But Woolf is really Benaroya, a dolphin-like alien anthropologist here to learn all there is to know about humanity and to fight the good fight against the evil, slave-trading Sajorians. Sterling falls madly in love with Benaroya. It’s just the sort of romp an aging vampire needs—but first, to defeat the Sajorians, they have to sell millions of Famous Men’s Sperm Kits to every woman on Earth.

“Scott carries on the tradition of Mark Twain, using outside observers to remark on society. Targets include … the treatment of women … consumer culture and the general human willingness to be led by the nose by a charismatic figure. …A message needed now more than ever.” —Publishers Weekly

“A lot of of fun … its real appeal is in Scott's stabs at the foibles and shortcomings of our society. Jody Scott sees things with a clear eye. You must read carefully, for she can point a caustic finger with a single throwaway line. And when she really winds up, everything is fair game: big business, the military, politics, religion and more. In addition to sharpness and criticism, there are wackiness, clever dialogue, action and lots of love. I enjoyed this one immensely and recommend it highly.” —The Seattle Times

“I liked I, Vampire enough to check it off on the Nebula ballot.” —Pamela Sargent

“Exuberantly clever and wildly iconoclastic… If you thirst for something really witty, quirky, with bags of brains [...] you’ll do no better than this wonderful novel.” —For Books’ Sake

“Those who seek to deride feminist SF often suggest that it is too serious and po-faced, but Jody Scott’s wild imagination, seemingly scattershot but tightly controlled, makes … an absurdly comic romp of unexpected juxtapositions and witty asides.” —SF Mistressworks

AN OUTRAGEOUSLY EXTRATERRESTRIAL LOOK AT THE HUMAN CONDITION

Now available in book form for the first time ever! When this sequel to Passing for Human and I, Vampire was written in the 1980s, it was rejected by all the major science fiction publishers who told Jody Scott it was “too far out” for commercial publication.

“Jody Scott knows that science fiction reaches the parts other fiction cannot reach. Like Philip K. Dick, she uses science fiction to question the meaning of reality and the nature of humanity—but saying that doesn't even hint at what a wild, original and outrageously funny writer she is.” —TimeOut Magazine

“The greatest employment of science fiction in the service of satire. The best unknown SF writer.” —Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine

Rysemian operatives are here to help us evolve. Or Else. But first they must defeat archfiend Scaulzo, worshiped as the Prince of Darkness across many galaxies. ...But can the devil ever really be tamed? Freewheeling cadet Benaroya has a plan—so audacious it might just succeed. Recruit Virginia Woolf’s lover, lesbian vampire Sterling O’Blivion; send her to the mothership for training and rehab by George Patton and Nancy Reagan. Detail Abe Lincoln and Douglas MacArthur to the 1950s to unravel the Gordian knot of human history, master the nuances of being a “respected male leader,” survive Scaulzo's Agony Organ horrorshow that hypnotically invades their thoughts, and refrain from liking the human race a little too much. Tapdance America’s child-sweetheart to superstardom as a Rysemian evangelist. (“‘I come to you humans from across the void,’ Shirley roared in pulpits everywhere—standing on a pile of books.”) Spring the ultimate, high-stakes trap for the devil; Benaroya the bait, Earth’s fate in the balance.

“Jody Scott is like a mad cabby who knows most of the streets in town and knows where the laughs are—get into her rig and she'll take you on a fast and furious spin through America's ideological terrain.” —Michael Shea

“There’s a hilarious rage at the heart of Devil-May-Care that threatens to devour the plot, but doesn’t. Somehow Jody Scott has created a universe that tears across all the usual genre categories and makes brilliant, vicious fun of just about everything. It’s delicious craziness with some serious wisdom shining through.” —Ernest Hogan, author, High Aztech

One of the 10 Weirdest Science Fiction Novels That You've Never Read —io9

“A joyously and at times scatologically tangled satire of the post-industrial western world from a feminist point of view that wittily verges on misandry.” —The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

“A riproaringly magnificent time. Passing For Human is quite unlike anything anyone else has ever done.” —Neil Gaiman

Passing for Human
or
Who Isn't Afraid of Virginia Wolf?

Starring:
Benaroya, a 36-foot extraterrestrial "dolphin"

in the role of:
"Brenda Starr"
"Emma Peel"
Mary Worth
And a happy New Guinea hoptoad.

With an all-star cast including:
Abraham Lincoln
Jennison, the Kansas Jayhawker
Heidi's Grandfather
General George S. Patton
The Los Angeles Police Department
The Prince Of Darkness
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Ancient Egypt
The Isle of Capri
Interstellar Station 8
Four billion newly created people
And several hundred Richard Nixons

When a dolphin-like alien comes to Earth disguised in a female human body, it sets the stage for a wild feminist romp that out-strangers Stranger in a Strange Land.

“The pace of the story never lets up, yet it finds room for serious contemplation of humanity’s woes. The style is easy, with an edge of noir. The central character is a bit of a tough girl which, mixed with her naivety about humans, makes for an intriguing and likeable character. Especially as she (in common with the other aliens) inhabits bodies she has chosen from Earth culture—Brenda Starr, Emma Peel, and Virginia Woolf. Who could not like that, especially the final scenes in which Virginia Woolf is involved in a running gun battle. The humour, pace, and wry observation make this a rare and wonderful beast—a serious science fiction novel that doesn’t take itself seriously.” —Graeme K Talboys, Grumbooks Review

“The novel leaps along with an energy and a disregard for convention that reminds me a little of genre outsiders like Barry Malzberg and possibly Josephine Saxton in that this reads like a romp through the Collective Unconscious. A closer comparison might be with the early novels of Ishmael Reed who shares with Scott a vitriolic contempt for seemingly all and everything, sniping and satirising hilariously along the way. Jody Scott’s wild imagination, seemingly scattershot but tightly controlled, makes Passing For Human an absurdly comic romp of unexpected juxtapositions and witty asides. Good examples of what SF can do when it steps out of its comfort zone, and of how women’s SF can challenge the genre assumptions by challenging its tropes and its language. Take a look, see what you think.” —Performative Utterance