Author: jmstine

His dream girl proved a delightful nightmare!

Every since Marc Pillsworth's dream girl had come to life, he had been in hot water. Now the water was getting colder! Cold war assassins were shooting him, a ghost was waiting to haunt his corpse—and Toffee was about to love him to death.

Pillsworth thought he had problems—then his wife found out about Toffee's reappearance! After that he had No Time for Toffee. And in the second and final Toffee novella, Marc Pillsworth discovers that though the dream girl was enough to drive any man dizzy, seeing her with x-ray vision was even more so. Add a miracle elixir, a con artist named Hotshot Harold, and a bevy of police officers who think Marc is a crook, mix well with zaniness ...and you have The Laughter of Toffee. Here you'll find the final two novellas in the series that rivals Thorne Smith's beloved Topper.

Nebula Nominee's Never-Reprinted Alternate Universes Pulp Masterpiece!

Straight from the pages of the Fall 1943 issue of Startling Stories comes this book-length novel of piracy, romance and alternate history. Pilot Steve Killiard is shot down by a Japanese pilot during a WWII dogfight. But does he descend to earth only to be taken as a prisoner of war? No!

Instead, a strange ship materializes in the heavens and soon Killiard is taken captive by pirates from an alternate Earth, whose discovery of cross-dimensional travel frees them to descend upon—and loot—any other sitting-duck Earths who, with inferior technologies, are still stuck in their own dimension.

But when Killiard finds himself the slave of a female time pirate, and starts to fall for her, he thinks things might not be so bad. That's when he learns that our Earth is fated to lose WWII, and determines to let nothing stand in the way of stealing the time pirates' technology and returning home to help win the war for America.

Can You Guess Who's Who?

In this murder mystery set at a 1960s World Science Fiction Convention, real-life authors and fans behind fictional names are mixed with fictional characters. Match wits with the book's author, J. D. Crayne, try to identify the real characters and their actual names in this unique roman à clef.

It's a holiday weekend, and the World Science Fiction Convention is ready to roll. The first speaker for the first panel steps up onto the speaker's platform—and finds a corpse under the table. Not only is it a corpse, it's the body of a writer/editor that no one liked, and he's been brained with one of science fiction's most prestigious awards—the Hugo.

Enter the FBI. The dead man had a day job as a biochemist and there seems to be a conspiracy afoot to murder American biochemists. Is there a link between Coubra's murder and those other deaths? Special Agent Noel Minden finds himself cast adrift on a sea of make-believe as he tries to make sense out of science fiction fandom. Lovely "Grub" Witchety and her grandfather, Dr. J. R. Derry (known as "Gramps"), introduce the bemused agent to amateur press publishing, monster movies, and the Mystic Water from the Well of St. Fanthony. You'll laugh out loud at the antics of this slightly cockeyed investigative trio as they cope with masquerade beauties, fan parties, filk song sessions, and those dog-eared, vintage copies of Astounding, Amazing, and Arkham House reprints in the huckster room.

The luckless convention chairman is just beginning to get over the death of Coubra, when there's a second murder. This time the victim is a man that everybody liked! Is there a connection between the two killings? The convention ends on Monday, and time is running out.

Meet mutated mice, big-headed aliens, and amiable drunks in the hotel lounge. And while you're reading, test your knowledge of sixties and seventies science fiction writers and fans against the author's. Can you guess the real-life people behind these characters who you will meet in the novel: Gary Corneille, Brad O'Neill, Marshall Barrigan, Bill and Beth Krotz, Uncle Elmer, Frank and Dinah Kinder, Wes Dalvan, The Flash, Nate Levenson, Derryk Masters, Will Studley, or Big Hearted Howard. It's a hoot, it's a yell, it's a blast! It's black jelly beans and wandering bagels! It's a sci-fi con!

Fans of Jack Vance and Clark Ashton Smith will Love Retslu!

Enter the enchanting fantasy world of Retslu. Some say it's as flat as a pancake. Others think it's as round as a crystal ball. Perhaps if you traveled to Nowhere Mountain, where you can see the edge of the world, you could find out who's right.

There are many strange lands. For example, in the Nether Lands, the warriors ride on bicycles; hence they are known as Bikings. In Vampirevania, the ruler is a vampire and attacks by werewolves are an everyday occurrence. Among the many sights you won't want to miss are the great red dragon who guards the Fountain of Youth, the land of The Who where they hate The Whats, the undersea city of Atlantis, and Turkle Troll, the toll taker of the Troll Bridge, who may ask you a riddle or two.

"Dear Diary: What a day oh God what a day. This morning the baby dinosaurs started hatching out in the oven… When I started this diary I thought I’d just be telling about stupid junk. I didn’t know I’d get married to someone like Jimmy or finally meet the guy I really wanted when Paul showed up. I never thought I’d be in a trailer house in Montana or have real Indians for friends. And nobody ever said anything about me hatching baby dinosaurs, and keeping track of what happens while they grow. But I did, and I have, and I do. And there’s a lot to tell."

Don't miss this spellbinding novel of romance, adventure and the tribulations of being fostermother to to a passel of baby dinos!

Only She Could Free the President from a Sorcerer's Spell!

Raven has been convicted of the murder of Peter Morgan, and is serving a life sentence, when she is visited by Magbertius the evil sorcerer in his guise as Peter Johnson. He tells her that he is going to become the emperor of the world and wants her to be his empress. She tell him to get lost.

But she is also visited by Jack Grant, Deputy Director of Homeland Security. He makes a deal to arrange for her and her newfound friend Annie to be released from prison if she will help him on a case. Grant tells her that since the president's new advisor, Nicholas Machevelli, has been appointed, the president has been acting strangely, proposing bills contrary to his beliefs, taking more power for himself and declaring war on a friendly nation. The agent wants Raven to find out how this Machevelli is controlling the president.

Soon Raven finds she is up to her neck in a deadly plot involving demons, rival sorcerers, secret agents, murderous politicians and The Necronomicon. As Raven parries magic and follows up clues, her path leads to an isolated mansion on a remote island. There she will face dangers and challenges greater than any before, with the fate of the world resting on her very unlikely survival.

Hugo Nominee Novel and Two Others by Hugo Winning Author!

An engineer tries to leave the pirate culture of his birth behind when he moves to a peaceful planet—but runs afoul of the law when his inventions threaten a conservative world with cultural change, and only his pirate family can save him in Pirates of Erstaz.

Then a handful of humans with psychic powers pit their talents and abilities against an all-conquering military empire in Talents, Incorporated.

Finally, children from space nearly bring the Earth to total war in a very adult novel of beings from long ago, far away. Leinster's best, read 'em or weep!

A Wacky Science Fantasy Classic!

If you love off the-wall, guaranteed loony sf, then you'll love the writer the 1940s hailed as Don "the madman" Wilcox. According to sf/f/h author, anthologist and critic Lin Carter, Wilcox's writing can best be summed up as "Adult fairy tales!"

When Joe Banker falls for Donna Londeen, the university's new cheerleader, he thinks she's out of this world! When Joe accidentally knocks off Donna's perennial hat, he sees he's right. Donna has horns!

Donna flees, and Joe follows her to a concealed spaceship. When he runs into his crusty, corncob puffing Uncle Keller, the two end up trapped in the spaceship just as it takes off. Soon they are on the craziest planet ever conceived, where the apples grow big and blue, and the people have horns for catching them as they fall from trees. Joe quickly discovers that he isn't the only suitor for Donna's hand, and that the locals also use their horns for other things—like fighting!

To win Donna's heart, Joe will have to beat his rival in their planet's traditional contest: whoever most cruelly beats the relative he loves most wins! And Joe only has one relative at hand! Meanwhile, Uncle Keller has made some discoveries of his own, such as the fact that the "naggie wool" from which the locals spin their garments makes an excellent substitute for tobacco. Then Joe and his naggie-wool-smoking Uncle discover poachers from another star have landed and are beginning to capture and kill the locals for their horns!

As right-thinking American males, there is only one thing they can do: take on the poachers and destroy them and their ship. If they survive, Joe will have to torture his beloved uncle—that is, if Joe survives the violent case of naggie-madness he has just contracted from eating one of the big blue apples that has gone bad!

Long before Donna says, "The Earth Man is good to look at," you will be laughing yourself sick. Zany situations, off-beat puns, daffy characters, no wonder sf/f/h author, anthologist Terry Carr pleaded, "Give us more Wilcox, please!"

Classic Fantasy in the Tradition of "Topper"!

Marc Pillsworth's dream girl materialized from a magical plane—but she turned out to be a nightmare of comic proportions!

Pillsworth was dreamer. That was good; it helped make him a success in advertising. But it was bad when his idle imaginings of the perfect woman turned out to be so strong they tapped the magical plane and she came to life right before his eyes!

You'd think that would be a miracle, but Marc found out otherwise! For, like so many "dream girls" since the dawn of humankind, his dream girl, Toffee, had a mind of her own—and a life of her own, too! Worse yet, she had magical powers and insisted on using them on Marc's behalf. That might have been a miracle, too, but lacking worldly experience, the impulsive Toffee's efforts had a way of proving disastrous for Marc. Soon Marc's fiancée, the police, various citizens, and even members of the local underworld are all out for Marc's scalp—and just when he has succeed in sending Toffee away!

Here is delightful fantasy adventure in the tradition of Thorne Smith's Topper. Toffee won legions of fans when she appeared in Fantastic Adventures in the late 1940s. Out of print for sixty years, this special eBook edition presents the first three adventures of Toffee, the dream girl, complete and uninhibited.

Hugo Nominee's Most Dazzling Novellas!

Rog Phillips' "Unthinkable" and "Incomprehensible," which have never been reprinted since their original publication in Amazing Stories half a century ago, are two outstanding examples of the "thought-variant" story designed to open new ways of seeing and thinking about the universe in its readers.

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction hailed Phillips' work as "ingenious exercises in paradoxes of perception." None more so than this pair of short novels. As the author himself wrote in his Afterword to "Unthinkable," "In this story, an attempt has been made to depict [laws of nature that] conflict with human mentality. It is not the ordinary science fiction attempt. It is not new laws working in harmony with old, or new discoveries that fit into the old pattern. It is, if you please, an utterly alien bit of reality in conflict with the old. You won't like it at all—unless you have the type of mind that can reach a little way beyond experience. And though what you may 'see' may have no counterpart in all reality, if this story serves to expand your mental horizons, it has at least found an excuse for being written."

No wonder the Encyclopedia says Rog Phillips' stories "did much to raise the standards" of the sf of his time, and Multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner Robert Silverberg, who as a young man admired Phillips work very much, wrote that Philips is "the master of a new type of sf writing."

Put your own brain to the test with "Unthinkable" and "Incomprehensible," two unforgettable classics from the golden age of the science fiction pulps.