Author: jmstine

When one reader got split into five men, Raymond A. Palmer, the editor of Golden Age SF Pulp Fantastic Adventures, found he had his hands full!

Following up on clues from Robert Louis Stevenson, a scientist invents a potion that separates the evil facet of the self from the good. A friend, Clyde Woodruff, drinks it and...not one, but four facets split off: a killer, a liar, a fool and a coward—each of which looks down on the others and views itself as the "real" self.

When Woodruff loses his girlfriend, reputation, and nearly his freedom due to the killer and the liar, his original self writes up the entire story and mails it to the legendary Raymond A. Palmer, then the real-life editor of the very real pulp Fantastic Adventures, asking for his help in unraveling the mess and proving the existence of his real self. Woodruff also sends Palmer a very hefty payment and round-trip ticket. What self-respecting sf editor could resist?

Here is a forgotten, never-reprinted "thought-variant" mind-bender that probes so deep into issues of identity and its validation you may find your brain twisted inside-out like a Klein bottle. From the text: "'First,' he continued, 'though this manuscript was written by the supposedly real Clyde Woodruff, the truth is that I am the real Clyde Woodruff, and I did not write it. The story related in these pages is, nevertheless, true in the main. Its first lie is in the identification of the four other men who were in this room with me. There never was a coward! There was a killer, a fool, a liar and a fourth who was a crafty, ruthless person, shrewd and calculating. In a sense, he was the most complex character of all.'

"Palmer looked at the man before him aghast. Was this the real Clyde Woodruff, the liar, the fool, the crafty, calculating one, or even the coward prevaricating to save his own existence? And if he knew the answer, what could he do about it? How could he possibly help the real Clyde Woodruff? Worse, was there any such thing as the real Clyde Woodruff left to help?"

Hugo Finalist Author!

During the history of every planet in the universe, a time arrives when the final battle of Armageddon must be fought.

For centuries, two opposing alien cultures have struggled over human history, each attempting to use it toward its own ends. One wants to bestow on Earth all the benefits advanced science can bring, another wants to breed us as warriors and interstellar cannon fodder. In their struggle, these aliens have been responsible for many of Earth's great leaps forward—and much of its even greater slaughter from war, conquest and centuries-long hatred.

When a brave woman and two unusual men become caught up in the conflict, they discover that a single man may have been opposing the two alien races throughout history. A man who may be Buddha, and may have founded Christianity at the Council of Nicaea...if he exists at all!

When you hear the word "Armageddon," you probably think of a gigantic final war in which the fate of the world is decided. If you are looking for such a war in this novel, you will be surprised. Instead, you will find a new concept of the meaning of the word, and a new concept of the universe itself.

First-ever reprint of this legendary novel from Amazing Stories, May 1948.

"A wonderful story...almost any immortality story would be inferior!" —Robert Silverberg

A scientist discovers he is immortal. His first reaction is intense happiness, and he makes plans for his future and that of his family. But then he has to watch his family grow old and die, while he stays young and healthy. What can he do with the gift of forever? What should he do? Can he erase from his mind and heart all feeling and the need for love? And worse, can he always be sure of his value in a changing world? He will have to answer all these questions and more when he discovers other immortals and must make a decision—a decision that will change the world far more than even an immortal can envision.

Here is the story of a handful of men and women who lived from the middle of the 20th century into our future. What did they make of their lives? If you found you could live forever, what would you do? Search for wealth, power, happiness...or death? What could sustain you for two hundred years? For a thousand? Is forever too long to live?

"Forever Is Too Long is a wonderful story...almost any immortality story would be inferior!" raved Hugo and Nebula Winner Robert Silverberg when this story was first published in the May 1947 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

Original magazine cover by Robert Gibson Jones

"Terrific!" —Terry Carr, editor, author, critic.

If E.R. Burroughs and E.E. Smith had collaborated, they would have produced Hidden City! Written by golden age sf pulp novelist Chester S. Geier, here is the first work of this forgotten master ever reprinted.

From the legendary pages of the 1940s Amazing Stories, Hidden City is the story of a small group of private individuals struggling to build and launch a moon mission. Although they guess they will be surrounded by spies from the U.S. government and its enemies, they don't suspect some of those spies to be, quite literally, out of this world!

Fighting sabotage and government regulations, they finally launch. Then, beneath the surface of the moon they find an amazing city that can be raised above the surface when necessary. Inhabiting it are descendants of an advanced race of humanity who left to find peace in the days of Atlantis.

Soon the Earth pilot is fighting on Luna, in space, and on Earth for the Moon's beautiful Queen, while she struggles to outwit plotters among her own people who have been corrupted and caught the Earth's lust for power. Conquest of two worlds is their aim.

...Then a strange personage from out of time takes a hand, and the two lovers are tempted with power unconquerable.

Cover: Original cover art for Hidden City, Amazing Stories July 1947, by Robert Gibson Jones.

Hilarious Misadventures in the Past!

Only Arthur K. Barnes, creator of the inimitable Gerry Carlyle, Interplanetary Huntress, could have dreamed up anyone as droll and original as Pete Manx. A top reader favorite when they appeared in the legendary Golden Age pulp Thrilling Wonder Stories, this Futures Past edition marks the first-ever appearance of this series in book form, and their first-ever appearance in more than half a century.

Carnival barker, conman and small-time crook, Pete Manx is always in trouble of one kind or another. To save himself, he heads for the laboratory of his friend Dr. Mayhem. There, to satisfy the slightly-crazed doctor's curiosity about the past, Manx is sent back in time, where his attempts to line his pockets with a classic grift soon reduce King Arthur's or Julius Caesar's court, or the Trojan War, or Robin Hood's outlaws, to uproarious shambles. The inevitable result is that Pete is soon in hotter water than before. For Pete Manx is no mere time traveler, but a time troubler, first class. Whenever he goes, trouble follows. Join his dizzy misadventures in "Roman Holidaze," "The Grief of Bagdad," "Robin Hoodwinked," "Knight Must Fall," and "The Greeks Had a War for It."

Also included are two rare peeks behind the scenes in which Barnes shares the stories of how "Roman Holidaze" and "Knight Must Fall" came to be written.

First published in 1924, The Thief of Bagdad has been reprinted only once in the past seventy-five years! Don't miss your chance to read this gorgeous, opulently-written fantasy classic.

The story begins when Achmed, the most skillful thief in the city-state of Bagdad, steals into the Palace of the Caliph in search of loot—but one look at the city's Princess, and he discovers a greater treasure, for it is the Princess who becomes the thief, stealing his heart instead.

Days later it is announced that the Princess, having reached marriageable age, according to ancient tradition, will meet the Princes of all the neighboring kingdoms and choose among them the Prince who most moves her heart, who will become her husband and the future ruler of Bagdad. Three famous Princes come to woo her: Bhartari-hari Vijramukut, Prince of Hindustan, Khalaf Mansur Nasir-ud-din Nadir Khan Kuli Khan Durani, Prince and King of Persia, and the evil, rapacious Cham Sheng, Prince of the Mongols, who has determined Bagdad shall be his, by marriage if possible, by conquest should the Princess choose otherwise.

A fourth suitor comes too, the mysterious, resplendent "Ahmed, Prince of the Isles of the Sea and of the Seven Palaces," who is none other than the Thief of Bagdad, arrayed in stolen finery. He has come to steal from the Palace again, but this time his intended loot isn't gold and jewels but the Princess herself. But when the Princess falls in love with Achmed, he wakens to a sickening realization that it would be wrong to take her from her world into his own. Renouncing her love, Achmed wanders the streets despondent, until he encounters an ancient sage and confesses his love and sins. "If you love a Princess," the sage advises, "make yourself a Prince," and sets him on the path to a magic treasure, a secret which, if he survives the fearsome dangers that guard it, will make him a Prince.

Meanwhile, the Princess, encouraged by the sage, determines to use all her wits to forestall her remaining suitors until Achmed returns. What neither counts on is the black magic and black treachery of the Prince of the Mongols. Soon conflict is joined with flying carpets, cloaks of invisibility, all-seeing crystals; secret agents; and armies both real and magical. The Thief of Bagdad is the masterwork by the great English-Arabian writer, Syyed Shaykh Achmed Abdullah Nadir Khan el-Durani el-Iddrissyeh (1881-1945), himself the son of a Russian Grand Duke and an Arabian princess, one time officer with the British Army in India.

Horror Classic that Scared Lovecraft!

First-ever reprint of a pulp classic. After reading this soul-shaking tale of terror, madness and death, the legendary H. P. Lovecraft wrote: "William Tillinghast Eldridge set a high standard [in horror] in The Forest Reaper."

When two young men reared in the Western world enter a remote and forgotten jungle, their adventure leads to love for one and a hideous death for the other. Shaken to the core by the sight of his brother's mutilated corpse, the survivor decides to become his avenger.  In his madness he becomes the Forest Reaper, collecting the lives of those who tortured and murdered his sibling. But in the process, he releases an evil from which he can not spare either himself or the woman he has come to love.

Warning: this story is grisly and dark. From the legendary pulp magazine All-Story, which gave the world Tarzan, Zorro, and other great works.

Cover photo: M. Christian

She was Reborn After Three Thousand Years!

Here is a first-ever reprint of a 1940s Golden Age pulp magazine horror novel. Here is a shuddersome treat for lovers of classic mummy stories and classic mummy movies. When the three-thousand-year-old mummy of Zaleikka, an Egyptian priestess, is stolen from Chicago's famous Field Museum, Assistant Curator Barry Randall finds himself suspicious of a secretive patron, Dr. Anubis.

Spying on Anubis, Barry sees a mysterious parade of visitors admitted to the Doctor's mansion after they give a password, and encounters another spy, Joan Forrest, reporter for the Daily Blade. Soon the two have entered Dr. Anubis' home using the password, where they see Zaleikka restored to the full bloom of her youth, beauty and powers and learn that Anubis is the head of an ages-old secret organization dedicated to making Imperial Egypt the ruler of the world once again with the powers at Zaleikka's command.

Taken prisoner, Barry and Joan find themselves mysteriously transported to the Giza plateau and caverns far beneath the pyramids. There Barry becomes the object of Zaleikka's inflamed passions, while Joan becomes the victim of her fiery jealousy. Then, in the shadow of the Sphinx, which has stood mutely taunting humankind for thousands of years, they discover the key to its mystery but are forced to stand helpless while the Egyptian priestess unleashes a force so potent it can destroy every nation on Earth!

Shadow of the Sphinx is a classic 1940s horror novel, by famed author/publisher William Hamling, which has never been reprinted anywhere since its original appearance in the golden age pulp Fantastic Adventures. The late Lin Carter, an award-winning horror writer and editor, called this tale of Zaleikka, an ancient Egyptian sorceress resurrected from her sarcophagus, "the best story of its kind I read in many a moon. The character of Zaleikka was done to perfection. This is the type of yarn we have all too few of nowadays."

Cover art: Alan White

Could Her Death Save a World?

From the author of the bestselling After the Polothians comes a dazzling novel of art, science and human passions. Fifty years after settling a small, icy world, only a single city has been established, on the south shore of a great lake. The colonists must still work 12/7 with only three days off each year because an unrealistic government's plans have kept the world from becoming a success.

Then the suicide of the popular state artist, Ruby, sets off a series of interactions among those who knew her that threatens to turn the planet upside down. John Throde, who was her lover a quarter century earlier, is losing his job as manager of an ill-fated iron mine, the victim of government bungling. Eta Plain, supervisor of the state artists, dreams of opening a gallery to sell Ruby's art, except that art galleries don't fit into the government's cultural plans.

Merrik Frhan suffers from deep-rooted guilt: Though he now sees all the government has done wrong, as one of the former heads of the government, he is the one who instituted its policy of iron rule. When John Throde learns that Ruby has named him her heir and left him her work, these three are brought together. Soon Merrik Frhan has proposed a plan to prove the government's incompetence by gathering a group of investors to purchase the mine outright. Eta will keep an eye on the investors' interests and John will have the free hand he needs to run the mine efficiently and show a profit.

But none of the three brought together by Ruby's death has been completely honest with the others; and when they meet again the stage is set for a stunning climax as the physical, social and personal forces tearing their world apart are all unleashed at once.

Howard's Greatest Novels and Stories!

3 novels, 7 novelettes, 5 short stories! Here is a real bargain for Robert E. Howard fans, the complete texts of three full-length books by the creator of Conan in one inexpensive ebook: The Cairn on the Headland & Other Strange Stories; The Horror From the Mound & Other Weird Encounters; Black Vulmea's Vengeance & Other Ghastly Tales.

Included are such electrifying, unforgettable stories as "Moon of Zambebwei," "Fangs of Gold," "Cairn on the Headland," "The Fire of Asshurbanipal," "Black Talons," "The Horror from the Mound," "Haunter of the Ring," "Black Vulmea's Vengeance," "Valley of the Worm," "Whistler from the Dark," and other classics of fantasy, adventure and horror.