Category: scifi 1900-1950

Interplanetaries: The Complete Interplanetary Tales of Clark Ashton Smith

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Interplanetaries: The Complete Interplanetary Tales of Clark Ashton Smith
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Clark Ashton Smith (1893–1961) is best known for creating exotic worlds of fantasy, such as the lost continent Zothique, set in the far future, the arctic realm of Hyperborea, and the medieval domain of Averoigne. It is less widely known that Smith was a pioneer in science fiction, as his tales appeared extensively in such pulp magazines as Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories and had a marked influence on the science fiction of his day.

Mars was a favored locale for several significant tales, including the cosmic horror masterpiece “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis.” “Seedling of Mars” is one of several tales in this volume that broaches the distinctive subgenre of “green horror”—horror that results from deadly animated plants. This motif first found expression in Smith’s early prose poem “The Flower-Devil,” and he utilized it in such tales as “Vulthoom,” “The Demon of the Flower,” and others.

The remote planet Xiccarph is the setting for two tales, “The Maze of the Enchanter” and “The Flower-Women.” One of Smith’s most expansive tales, “The Monster of the Prophecy,” is set on Antares, while the late story “Phoenix” is grimly apocalyptic in its setting in the far future, with most of the Earth’s inhabitants killed off.

Clark Ashton Smith’s mastery of a prose-poetic idiom lends a distinctive flavor to his interplanetary tales. Far from being naively optimistic adventures into the depths of space, they exhibit a rueful doubt as to the place of human beings in an immense and hostile universe.

This volume, edited by leading Clark Ashton Smith scholar Ronald S. Hilger, contains an illuminating preface by Nathan Ballingrud.

Queen of the Martian Catacombs: The Illustrated Stark (Eric John Stark by Leigh Brackett)

Queen of the Martian Catacombs: The Illustrated Stark (Eric John Stark by Leigh Brackett)
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Trouble is brewing on Mars… With civil war about to erupt, Eric John Stark has been sent to investigate an apocalyptic warlord recruiting mercenaries. More disturbing than the promise of a full scale war to unify the Martian city states is the claim that Delgaun’s ally, Kynon of Shun, has at his disposal ancient sorceries that grant him powers of life and death.

Why Kynon’s mistress, the beautiful Berild, takes an interest in Stark, the mercenary swordsman finds himself caught in a web of lief, betrayal, and evil magic. Can Stark unravel the mysteries of the lost Martian tribe and pull Mars back from the brink of war? The mysterious Berild is prepared to kill to keep the secret buried in the deserts of Mars–or offer it up on a plate to stark if he will help her conquer the Red Planet!

An all-new, fully-illustrated edition of Leigh Brackett’s classic Sword & Planet adventure!

See also he next adventures of Eric John stark : the skaith trilogy

The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson

The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson
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A man ventures into a world deprived of sunlight in this early-twentieth-century dystopian fantasy masterpiece. 

“One of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written.” —H. P. Lovecraft

The sun went out centuries ago. A vestige of mankind still clings to life, hidden from Earth’s frozen surface in an underground fortress called the Last Redoubt. But this tenuous refuge is under siege by enormous spiders, “Abhuman” creatures, and “Watchers” from another dimension. With this host of horrors lurking just beyond, leaving the Last Redoubt is unthinkable.

When a man receives a telepathic message from a long-forgotten Redoubt, he recognizes the woman’s voice as a love from another lifetime. To rescue her, he will risk his life—or worse—as he ventures into the Night Land. First published in 1912, William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land is a pioneering work of sci-fi fantasy.

The Heads of Cerberus by Francis Stevens (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics)

The Heads of Cerberus by Francis Stevens (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics)
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This Halcyon Classics ebook is Francis Stevens’ (Gertrude Barrows Bennett) dystopian future history novel THE HEADS OF CERBERUS.

After inhaling a strange gray dust, the protagonist awakes in the year 2118 in a dystopian Philadelphia–a totalitarian city where every aspect of life is rigidly regulated by the state.

Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1883–1948) (who published under the pseudonym Francis Stevens) was the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction in the United States. Bennett wrote a number of highly acclaimed fantasies in the 1910s and early 1920s, and has been called “the woman who invented dark fantasy.” While she lived until 1948, Bennett evidently published no new works after 1923.

This unexpurgated edition contains the complete text with errors and omissions corrected.

Robert Heinlein’s Expanded Universe

Robert Heinlein's Expanded Universe
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“The single most important and valuable Heinlein book ever published.”—Spider Robinson

Robert A. Heinlein has been hailed as one of the most forward-thinking science fiction writers of all time, and Expanded Universe (presented in two volumes) offers the perfect collection of his works to provide readers with true insights into his uniquely creative mind.

Heinlein personally selected each story or essay for inclusion in this collection, which is ordered chronologically, starting with his first sale in 1939 of “Life-Line” to Astounding (for seventy dollars).This remarkable collection highlights the development of Heinlein’s writing style and his philosophy on life throughout his career.

More importantly, this collection is as close to an autobiography as anything Heinlein wrote during his life. Heinlein was an extremely private person who never wrote much about himself. In this exclusive collection, he offers forewords to most of his stories and essays (and an occasional afterword), giving readers a rare glimpse into the inner mind of the master.

Expanded Universe is a must-have for any Heinlein enthusiast and any fan of science fiction.

Against the Fall of Night/The City and the Stars +Sequel

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Against the Fall of Night was first published in the magazine Startling Stories in 1948 before being revised and expanded as a novel in 1953 and later completely rewrite by Clarke as  The City and the Stars however Against the Fall of Night remained popular enough to stay in print after that.

In 1990 Gregory Benford published with Clarke’s approval Beyond the Fall of Night a sequel to Against the Fall of Night

The renowned science fiction author’s landmark novel of the last human born on a far future world—and his quest for the truth about existence.

Living in the ten-billion-year-old city of Diaspar, Alvin is the last child born of humanity, and he is intensely curious about the outside world. But according to the oldest histories kept by the city fathers, there is no outside world—it was destroyed by the Invaders millions of years ago.

One day, Alvin finds a rock with an inscription seemingly meant for him: “There is a better way. Give my greetings to the Keeper of the Records. Alaine of Lyndar.” This cryptic message takes Alvin on a quest to discover humanity’s true past—and its future.

Against the Fall of Night

The City and the Stars

Beyond the Fall of Night

 

Planet of Peril

Planet of Peril
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Derring-do on a world of primitive monsters!

When Robert Grandon swapped bodies with a prince of the planet Venus, he was concerned only with the thrill and interest of living on a different world. But the situation he found himself in was hardly that of a leisurely sightseer. Instead, he found himself smack in the center of a whirlwind of intrigue, danger, and desperation.

Planet of Peril is a science-fiction adventure on a world of semi-barbaric nations, ferocious beasts, gigantic reptiles, and maidens in distress!

Otis Adelbert Kline mars serie (sword and planet)

Otis Adelbert Kline mars serie (sword and planet)
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The Swordsman of Mars

In “Swordsman of Mars,” Harry Thorne, outcast scion of a wealthy East Coast family, seeks the greatest adventure of his life. He exchanges bodies with his look-alike, Martian Sheb Takkor, and is transported millions of years into the past to a Mars peopled with mighty warriors, beautiful women, and fearsome beasts.
Sheb Takkor, a great swordsman in his own right, must fight his way across the deserts and jungles of ancient Mars to save the lovely Princess Thane and to defeat his arch-enemy Sel Han — or die trying! Edgar Rice Burroughs was the first great writer of planetary adventures.
His one true rival and equal at writing planet stories was Otis Adelbert Kline.

 

and the sequel :  The Outlaws of Mars 

The Star Kings [The Two Thousand Centuries] Enhanced, Improved, Pulp Edition – original illustrations

The Star Kings [The Two Thousand Centuries] Enhanced, Improved, Pulp Edition - original illustrations
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romance and Thrilling Space Opera!

“… roistering adventure, two beautiful heroines, one of the most likable villains you could ask for … color and imagery … a final world-smashing slug-fest …good fun.” Analog/Astounding.

She was Lianna, ruler of the Kingdom of Fomalhaut. He was Zarth Arn, prince of the Mid-Galactic Empire, scion of the ruling house of Star Kings. Only these two stood between peace and a war of galactic conquest. And one of them was an impostor.
“Epic … lyrical … conceived on the grand scale.” New York Herald Tribune.
The Star Kings is the supreme work by the master of romantic space opera, Edmond Hamilton. John Gordon, a war vet restless in the humdrum of an office job, is offered a chance for adventure when he is contacted via dreams by Zarth Arn, a scientist-prince living two hundred thousand years in the future, and asked to exchange bodies for a week.

Zarth will research the present, while Gordon experiences the galaxy-spanning future of the star-kingdoms–200,000 years from now. There is only one stipulation: Gordon must give his word that under no circumstances will he reveal his true identity to anyone of Zarth’s time.

Moments later, John Gordon is hurtled through time to the Earth of two thousand centuries hence–into Zarth Arn’s laboratory and body. But, before the week is over, Gordon is summoned to the throne world of Throon by Zarth Arn’s father, ruler of the Mid-Galactic Kingdom. Unable to reveal his identity without breaking his pledge to Zarth Arn, Gordon is forced to play the role of the young star prince, and finda himself i caught in a strange triangle between two women: the intelligent, dynamic Lianna, ruler of the Star-Kingdom of Fomalhaut, whom Zarth’s father has ordered him to wed (and with whom Gordon swiftly falls in love), and warm, tender Murn (who Zarth Arn loves). G

alactic civilization is facing it’s greatest crisis, a war of conquest by Shorr Kan, tyrant of the League of Dark Worlds, and before John Gordon can even orient himself to this far future universe, Zarth Arn’s father is assassinated, with Zarth himself framed for the killing. Saved by Lianna, the pair flee on a galaxy spanning quest for the secret of the Disruptor, the one weapon that can defeat the Dark Worlds an preserve the freedom of the stars. And if they succeed, Gordon knows he must return to his own time, losing Lianna, the woman he loves, forever–or deliberately marooning Zarth Arn 200,000 years in the past, separating him from Murn, the woman he loves, forever.

Part of Edmond Hamlton’s breathtaking future history series, “The Two Thousand Centuries.” (New, improved edition with spelling errors corrected, a long introduction about the author, space opera, and the book; plus all the original magazine illustrations.) Cover design: J.L. “Frankie” Hill.

The Complete Interstellar Patrol (Annotated): A pulp space opera omnibus

The Complete Interstellar Patrol (Annotated): A pulp space opera omnibus
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Edmond Hamilton is considered as one of the creator of space opera subgenre of science fiction with E.E. “Doc” Smith,

In 1928, Edmond Hamilton published Crashing Suns in Weird Tales magazine, at approximately the same time that E.E. Smith’s Skylark of Space was published in Amazing Stories, giving both men the distinction of creating the genre of space opera. Hamilton, however, was the first to create a series, writing further stories in his Interstellar Patrol Series in 1929 and 1930, then writing a final one in 1934.

Here in one volume is every Interstellar Patrol story Hamilton published, including the novel Outside the Universe. What the stories lack in characterization and scientific plausibility, they more than make up for in enthusiasm, spectacle, and sheer breakneck pacing.

  • This iktaPOP Media omnibus includes new introductions that give the stories genre and historical context.