Author: jmstine

Was a Robot Responsible for the Starship Murders?

When a super-robot named Snookums discovers how to build his own superbombs, it becomes obvious that Earth is by no means the safest place for him to be. Thus Dr. Fitzhugh, his designer, and Leda Crannon, a child psychologist acting as Snookums' nursemaid, agree to set up Operation Brainchild, a plan to transport the robot to a far distant planet, and a secret location, via the space ship Branchell.

Mike the Angel—M. R. Gabriel, Power Design—is the designer of the ship's power plant. But regardless of how he might feel about it, his duties don't end with the completion of the plant; as a reserve officer in the Space Patrol, Mike is a logical replacement for the craft's unavoidably detained engineering officer.

Once into space, the Branchell—and Snookums—will offer everyone a harrowing, puzzling adventure whether they want it or not: the medical officer is murdered, and Snookums appears to be the culprit. Mike the Angel indulges himself in a bit of sleuthing, and the facts he turns up lead to a most unusual climax...

A Don't-Miss Science Fiction Bargain!

First from the award-winning Robert Sheckley is the tale of Will Barret, exiled to the criminal planet, Omega, for a crime he can't remember committing. There he fights for his life and sanity as he tries to survive in the twisted, criminal culture of Omega.

Next, Tom "Cold Equations" Godwin tell the gripping story of rejects from Earth, exiled to a frigid, deadly world where they become the victims of a predatory alien civilization and must spend every day of their lives, and every ounce of courage, to assure that their children have a tomorrow at all.

Finally, master pulp novelist Charles L. Fontenay spins one of his greatest adventures. Dark Kensington was a Phoenix who had been killed not once, not twice, but three times. Now he was back, younger than ever, to lead the rebel group in the overthrow of the Earth tyranny gripping the settlers on Mars. But Kensington seemed more bitter and ruthless than ever, determined to win at any cost, even undergoing dangerous experiments in mutation and psionics. Suddenly the rebels wondered who was the greatest danger: Earth's massed military might or their own leader?

"Wonderful and tragic allegory … amazing and thrilling scenes ... masterful … huge mystery, gigantic tragedy, and original and extraordinary situations…" so raved H. P. Lovecraft when The Citadel of Fear first appeared.

Here is one of the greatest classics of dark fantasy, a gorgeously written and imaginatively conceived masterpiece by the mysterious woman author who wrote as Francis Stevens. Talapallan, lost city of the ancient Aztecs, still survives, hidden safely in an eerie underground world. And among its many temples is the black fetid shrine where the dark god Nacoc-Yaotl is worshiped, the Citadel of Fear.

When two men from the modern world stumble into Talapallan, the evil in one allows Nacoc-Yaotl to escape when they return to civilization. Soon two of Stevens' trademark strong women and three very different but likable men find themselves pitted against a dark god of immense powers. Before the conflict is over, North America will be the scene of an epic battle against the mightiest gods of the Aztec pantheon.

Romance, magic, meaning, adventure, and beautifully compelling writing are all here in this long-unavailable fantasy masterwork.

"A Much Sought Rarity." —Analog

Written by the woman whose pseudonym was Francis Stevens, and whom fantasy master H. P. Lovecraft placed among "the top grade of writers," this science fantasy classic is suspected to be the first alternate history novel.

The Heads of Cerberus tells of "an alternate-world Philadelphia, reached by a handful of this-world people. This Philadelphia is one in which the political corruptors have become ruthless autocrats, ruling through phony 'civic service' competitions which result in cynically brutal enslavement of the people. The name of William Penn has become, under the organizational label of 'Penn Service,' the very fountainhead of viciously depraved, dictatorial government. Definitely a classic and fun to read." (Galaxy)

Brand New Idea in Psychic Powers!

Was Lance Tolliver the "missing link" to humanity's future? Born with the incredible ability to go deep inside his body, draw on its wisdom and even reshape it, Lance was a unique combination of man, chameleon and genius. He had the power to adapt, to create, and to destroy!

To many people he was a dangerous genetic mistake capable of unlimited evil and devastation that must be exterminated at all costs. To others, Lance represented the New Prometheus, what humanity might become, must become, if it was to mature, survive and reach the stars. But no one is sure whether Lance Tolliver is really the next rung up the evolutionary ladder, or the first of a race of supermonsters bent on the total extinction of the human race.

Only two people know the truth, physicians Ted Destin and Linda Abbott. And unless they can make themselves heard, the world will soon witness the awesome devastation of Tolliver's ultimate power, the bioblast! Here is another enthralling, cutting-edge science fiction masterwork from Raymond Z. Gallun, Nebula nominee author of Skyclimber and Dawn of the Demi-Gods.

Nebula Recommendee Saga of First Person Born on Mars!

The first colony on the red planet is founded amid joy and hope, and the colonists are given every support. Then war sweeps the mother planet and the Mars colonists are abandoned by an Earth that needs every resource for its own survival. Though there are signs the colony could become self-sufficient in time, the colonists don't have that time. They face slow and certain death.

However, Timothy Davis Barlow, nicknamed Skyclimber, the first person to be born, and grow up, on the red planet, believes he knows how to change Earth's mind. He plans a stellar stunt that dwarfs Lindberg's crossing of the Atlantic and soon has every living soul on the mother world glued to their video screens.

But when Tim arrives on Earth to cheering crowds, he discovers his real job has just begun. There he faces social and political challenges that make survival on Mars seem simple. He also finds love, with a woman who shares his vision of the farthest reaches of the galaxy. But even Tim grows daunted when he realizes just how big Earth really is and how many people still swarm its surface. Can one person really change the hearts and minds of so many billions? Don't miss this 1981 Nebula Recommendee novel. It's a mix of hard science and human emotion that only a grandmaster like Raymond Z. Gallun could have penned.

The Classic SF Saga—First Time Ever in Book Form!

When Nebula Nominee Ray Gallun's short novel "Old Faithful" was first published in the December 1934 Astounding Stories, it was instantly recognized as a classic. Gallun's sympathetic portrayal of a very alien being has since become one of the most beloved and reprinted science fiction stories of all time, and has appeared in such anthologies as Imagination Unlimited; Science Fiction: The Great Years, Before the Golden Age; The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun; The Analog Anthology #2: Readers' Choice; Gosh!Wow! (Sense of Wonder) Science Fiction, and dozens of others around the world.

Reader reaction at the time was so strong, sequels were demanded of "Old Faithful's" author, and he finally penned two further short novels, which together with the first constituted a tightly-plotted trilogy. The first had told the story of a strange, tentacled, but sympathetically conceived, alien, Old Faithful, who was supported in his rebellion against a rigid society by friends from Earth. The sequel (1935) featured "The Son of Old Faithful," who races to our world to help his father's friends forestall imminent invasion by his world's autocratic regime. In 1936's "Child of the Stars," the concluding installment of the trilogy, Old Faithful's son and the young daughter of his Earth friends work against impossible odds to prevent a clash between their two planets.

If You Love Topper, Xanth and Terry Pratchett…

Here is a classic fantasy from the pages of the legendary 1940s magazine Unknown Worlds. Henry Pickett is a colorless nebbish living a boring, hum-drum life. But that is about to change! Before the night is out, Henry, who never drinks, will have had more than a few—then he will become the unwitting custodian of a magical charm and the target of a contentious band of drunken gnomes from Rip Van Winkle territory.

But his real troubles when he meets Dorothy Guilford who is his diametrical opposite. She is a fascinating, self-confident witch who thinks the hapless Henry may be just the man for her.—but only if he proves himself worthy by surviving the alcohol, the gnomes, and the malfunctioning charm which is about to bring a whole world of woes down on Henry's head!

"The City at World's End finds the pleasant little American city of Middletown victim to the first punch of an atomic war, a super-hydrogen bomb which explodes a thousand yards above the city. Instead of blowing Middletown to smithereens, the blast blows it right off the map—to somewhere else.

"First there is the new thin coldness of the air, the blazing corona and dullness of the sun, the visibility of the stars in high daylight. Then comes the inhabitants' terrifying discovery that Middletown is a twentieth-century oasis of paved streets and houses and shops and trees and gardens—in a desolate brown world without trees, without water, apparently without life, in unimaginably far-distant future Earth which lies abandoned and dying. To survive, the citizens of Middletown realize they will have to abandon their city, migrate to the alien city beyond the hills, and try to master the secrets of its long-abandoned, incredibly advanced machinery.

"But the people of old Earth face their greatest crisis when they receive a communication from their own descendants, who have formed a Galactic Empire among the stars and long since evacuated Earth as uninhabitable for humans and have passed laws that it is to be preserved as a museum world and never repopulated again. If they are live in this future world, the men and women of Middletown will have to agree to leave Earth and migrate among the stars.

"The City at World's End is a human story of the reactions of men and women and boys and girls, people like you, suddenly thrust into an unprecedented situation. In its suspense, its intense humanity, its unexpected denouement, it is perhaps Mr. Edmond Hamilton's finest novel. We are sure you will agree. A most impressive example of understatement in science fiction. The author has made a largely successful effort to keep the major components of his story within the bounds of the human. Quite an accomplishment in view of the cosmic nature of the plot."
—Galaxy Magazine

Part of Hamilton's epic future history chronicles, The Two Thousand Centuries.

"Strongly written sword-and-sorcery story with an sf denouement!"

Here is a lost classic of lost valleys, intelligent animals and alien intervention. Eric Nelson is one of a desperate band of soldiers of fortune who have fought on the losing side in a war and eagerly take on a mysterious assignment deep in the borderlands of Tibet. There, in a legendary valley, Shan Kar, the man who has hired them, tells Nelson and the other mercenaries that their weapons are humankind's last ditch defense against the valley's intelligent animals, who plan to take over the world. If they are successful, the mercenaries' reward will be a fabulous treasure in platinum not far from the city of the animals.

But after an encounter with a warrior-maid who fights alongside the animals, and another with a telepathic wolf, Nelson wonders if he has been told the whole story. To find out he will have to enter the city of the animals, have his own personality transferred into the body of a wolf and run with the pack. Little does this cynical soldier realize that this will be an experience which will change him forever.

It's no wonder The Science Fiction Encyclopedia calls The Valley of Creation "A strongly-written sword-and-sorcery story with an sf denouement...carefully composed and dark in texture."