The Science-Fantasy Megapack: 25 Classic Tales from Fantasy Adventures

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

BRIAN BALL was born in 1932, in Cheshire. England. Much of his substantial body of novels — science fiction, supernatural, detective thrillers, and childrens’ fiction — was produced whilst Ball simultaneously was pursuing an academic career as a Lecturer in English at Doncaster College of Education, and serving as a Visiting Professor to the University of British Colombia, Vancouver,

Ball began by writing science fiction short stories for New Worlds and Science Fantasy, but very quickly made the transition to full-length sf novels, beginning with Simdog in 1965. His early SF novels, whilst action-packed adventure stories, were also rich in metaphysical speculation, qualities that quickly brought him international recognition. Of especial note was his trilogy about an ancient Galactic Federation. Timepiece (1968). Timepivot (1970), and Planet Probability (1973). By 1971 he had begun to diversify into supernatural novels with considerable success, and in 1974 his first detective novel. Death of a Low-Handicap Man, was published to wide acclaim. This novel is currently in print from Wildside Press, and a sequel. Death on the Driving Range (2009), is scheduled to appear from the Borgo Press, along with the best of his detective and supernatural novels. In 2004 Ball resumed writing short stories for Philip Harbottle’s Fantasy Adventures anthologies, published by Wildside Press. His Borgo Press books include: The Venomous Serpent: A Novel of Horror (2013), The Baker Street Boys: Two Baker Street Irregular Novellas (2012), The Evil of Monteine: A Novel of Horror (Ruane #2), 2012, Mark of the Beast: A Novel of Horror (Ruane #1), 2011, and Malice of the Soul (forthcoming).

ANTONIO BELLOMI, who was born in Milan, Italy, in 1945, has been prominent in all sectors of Italian genre publishing as a writer, agent, translator, and editor of books and magazine series (mostly science fiction, but including detective and western stories). His many successful science fiction series titles include, most notably, Spazio 2000, Solaris and the Italian edition of Perry Rhodan, which ran for sixty-six issues. Bellomi was the first Italian editor to extensively republish John Russell Fearn in Italy, including the first posthumous publication of such detective novels as The Man Who Was Not and Reflected Glory. Bellomi’s own SF novels and short stories have appeared in all the leading Italian magazines, including the Italian edition of Playboy. Altogether he has published more than 300 stories in many genres, including juvenile stories and comic strips. In recent years he has specialized in scientific detective stories. “The Broken Sequence,” featuring his ‘planetologist’ SF detective character Uriel Queta, was specially translated by the author for Fantasy Adventures.

Brighton-born English writer SYDNEY J. BOUNDS (1920–2006) was a leading prewar science fiction fan, but his professional writing career did not begin until after the war, when his first story “Strange Portrait,” a supernatural tale, appeared in the first (and only) issue of Outlands in 1946. He soon switched to contributing ‘spicy’ stories to the monthly periodicals produced by Utopia Press. He also wrote hard-boiled gangster novels for John Spencer under such pseudonyms as ‘Brett Diamond’ and ‘Rick Madison’, and contributed short stories to their line of SF magazines, including Futuristic Science Stories, Tales of Tomorrow, and Worlds of Fantasy.

Along with writing five SF novels during the 1950s, Bounds soon became a regular contributor to the magazines New Worlds Science Fiction, Science Fantasy, Authentic Science Fiction, Nebula Science Fiction, Other Worlds Science Stories, and Fantastic Universe. Later, he was a prolific contributor to the anthology series New Writings in SF, The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, The Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories, the Armada Monster Book, and the Armada Ghost Book.

One of his best-known stories, “The Circus”, was scripted by George A. Romero for a 1986 episode of the syndicated television series, Tales from the Darkside. In 2013 Universal and Qwerty Films released a film starring Liev Schrieber, The Last Days on Mars, based on one his best short stories (“The Animators,” 1975). Bounds also pursued parallel careers as a successful children’s writer and a western novelist. In the late 1970s he wrote a number of science fiction novels for an Italian publisher, together with some new supernatural and crime stories.

The first-ever collections of the author’s SF and fantasy stories were published in two volumes by Wildside Press: The Best of Sydney J. Bounds: Strange Portrait and Other Stories and The Wayward Ship and Other Stories, both edited by Philip Harbottle. The same editor also invited Bounds to write new supernatural and SF stories that appeared regularly in each issue of Fantasy Annual and Fantasy Adventures (Wildside Press), whilst a number of his best horror stories were anthologized by Stephen Jones.

Bounds published more than forty novels, beginning with a detective thriller in 1950, A Coffin for Clara (AKA Carla’s Revenge), but soon switched to writing SF and westerns, most notably his ‘Savage’ series, begun in 2000, with the eighth and last novel, Savage Rides West appearing posthumously in 2007. He also returned to writing detective novels, including The Cleopatra Syndicate (1990 Italian, 2007 English), Enforcer (2005), The Girl Hunters (2005), Murder in Space (2005), and Boomerang (2008).

The best of Bounds’ SF and detective novels are presently being reprinted by the Borgo Press, among them: Carla’s Revenge (2013), Boomerang (2012), Time for Murder (2012), and The World Wrecker (2011).

British author ERIC BROWN was born in Yorkshire in 1950, and his first science fiction short stories were published in Interzone in the late 1980s, to immediate acclaim. He went on to win The British Science Fiction Award for his short stories “Hunting the Slarque” and “Children of Winter” in 1999 and 2001. He has published more than a score of novels, beginning with Meridian Days in 1992. In the 1980s, Brown travelled throughout Asia, which afforded him authentic Indian background material for a number of his SF novels, such as Bengal Station (2004). His latest novel is Weird Space: Satan’s Reach (2013). His short stories “The Tapestry of Time” and “Uncertain World” were written especially for Fantasy Adventures, and he has since published several collections of short stories, his latest being Salvage Infinity (2013).

FREDERICK H. CHRISTIAN, the pen name of noted British author Frederick Nolan, was born in Liverpool in 1931. His first book was The Life and Death of John Henry Tunstall (1965), which was well received. He later founded the English Western Society, which brought him to the attention of Corgi Books (Bantam Books UK), for whom he became editor of their westerns line. He started writing westerns of his own under the pen name of Frederick H. Christian. Nolan created his own western hero “Angel” for another UK publisher, with great success, the novels soon being reprinted in America.

But Nolan had even greater writing ambitions, and quit his highly paid job to become a full-time writer. He became an internationally bestselling novelist, and his book The Oshawa Project was filmed by MGM as Brass Target, starring Sophia Loren. Since then Nolan has written many successful thrillers, historical novels, biographies, and radio and TV scripts.

ANDREW DARLINGTON, born and still living in Yorkshire, is a writer, critic and journalist, who is an expert in the fields of both popular music and science fiction. His book reviews and biographical studies of writers and musicians and vocalists have appeared widely in magazines and on-line, and his own short stories are distinguished by an intense frisson of both traditional and new-wave storytelling. He has contributed several powerful stories to both Fantasy Annual and Fantasy Adventures.

JOHN RUSSELL FEARN (1908–1960) was one of the first British writers to break into the American pulp science fiction magazine market of the 1930s and ’40s, but he also wrote 180 novels and hundreds of short stories of fantasy, horror, westerns, romance, crime fiction, and suspense, under numerous pseudonyms. His most popular series features the Golden Amazon, who was operated upon by a scientist when a child; this gave her superhuman physical powers and intelligence. Borgo Press has published over sixty of his novels and collections to date, including the twenty-one-volume Golden Amazon Saga, the five-volume Black Maria classic crime novel series, and many other mysteries, science fiction, horror, and romance novels.

JOHN GLASBY (1928–2011), a British writer, was an extraordinarily prolific writer of science fiction novels and short stories, his first books appearing in the summer of 1952 from Curtis Warren Ltd. under various house pseudonyms such as ‘Rand Le Page’ and ‘Berl Cameron’, as was the fashion of the day. Late in 1952, he began an astonishing association with the London publisher, John Spencer Ltd., which was to last more than twenty years. Glasby quickly became Spencer’s main author, writing hundreds of stories and novels on commissions in several genres. The best known of his plethora of pseudonyms was ‘A. J. Merak’, under which a number of his science fiction novels were reprinted in the 1960s in the United States.

When his association with John Spencer ended, he sold a science fiction novel under his own name to an American publisher (Project Jove, 1971). Always a great fan of the work of H. P. Lovecraft, he then began writing Cthulhu Mythos stories, including Dark Armageddon, a trilogy of novels that unifies Lovecraft’s conception of the Elder Gods and Old Ones. During the early 1960s, he also wrote dozens of paperback westerns, all of which were reprinted in hardcover. In recent years new supernatural stories have appeared in magazines and original collections edited by leading horror anthologist Stephen Jones, and in Philip Harbottle’s Fantasy Adventures anthologies (published by Wildside Press).

Also revived were his 1960s ‘Johnny Merak’ private-eye novels, which are being reprinted by Borgo Press. An all-new collection of ghost stories, The Substance of a Shade, was published in the UK in 2003, followed by The Dark Destroyer, a new supernatural novel, in 2005. In 2007 was authorized to continue John Russell Fearn’s famous ‘Golden Amazon’ series, and three novels, Seetee Sun, The Sun Movers, and The Crimson Peril, have appeared to date; a fourth novel, Primordial World, has yet to be published.

Many of the best of Glasby’s SF, supernatural, and detective titles are now being published by the Borgo Press, including new collections of short stories, among them The Dark Boatman, The Lonely Shadows, The Mystery of the Crater, Rackets Incorporated, Savage City, and A Time To Kill.

English writer PHILIP E. HIGH (1914–2006) was born in Norfolk. High’s writing ambitions did not surface until after the war. He published his first SF story, “The Statics,” in Authentic Science Fiction in 1956, and saw more than forty stories appear during the next decade, all of his writing being done in his spare time whilst working full-time as a bus driver. American readers were introduced to his work in 1964 when Ace Books began to issue High’s colorful sf adventure novels, including The Prodigal Sun (1964), No Truce with Terra (1964), The Mad Metropolis (1966), These Savage Futurians (1967), and Reality Forbidden (1968). Other novels followed over the next ten years.

Following the death of his literary agent and friend John Carnell in 1972, High retired from writing. In 1997 he was invited to contribute stories to Philip Harbottle’s new magazine Fantasy Annual. High enthusiastically responded, and his steady flow of top quality mss. was in no small way responsible for Fantasy Annual extending to five issues, before metamorphosing into Fantasy Adventures. High continued contributing to the magazine right up to the time of his untimely death, which — as noted in the editor’s introduction — was a major factor in its discontinuation. “The Wishing Stone” was his very last story, published posthumously.

Another Yorkshire-born British writer, GORDON LANDSBOROUGH (1913–1983) began his career as a chemist, before switching to journalism. After active service in North Africa during the War, Landsborough returned to London. In 1949 he was appointed editor of Hamilton Co. Stafford Ltd., an undistinguished paperback publisher of pulp fiction. Landsborough made vast improvements in their list and rebranded them in 1951 as ‘Panther Books’, publishing a regular series of genre novels, most notably science fiction. He also launched the famous British SF magazine, Authentic Science Fiction. As part of his editorial duties, Landsborough wrote westerns, crime, and foreign legion thrillers, mostly under his personal pseudonym of Mike M’Cracken. His personal memoir of this period of his career can be found in the book Vultures of the Void: The Legacy by Philip Harbottle.

In 1954 Panther Books became one of the leading British publishers, switching from original genre novels to paperback reprints of bestselling hardcover novels from other publishers. Nonfiction titles predominated, especially Second World War books, and the fiction titles were by bestselling writers. In 1957 Landsborough started Four Square Books. Michael Geare, who was employed by him in 1957 as sales manager, said of him that ‘He was a gifted, clever, likeable chap, and really knew everything about book publishing. On one occasion when we were a book short on the list, he took five days off and wrote the book himself. It wasn’t half a bad paperback, either.’ Four Square Books was very successful, and were sold to New English Library in 1962. Landsborough went on to create several other successful imprints, most notably the children’s paperback company, Armada Books (later bought out by Collins), and another children’s publishing company, Dragon Books. His list included his own adaptations for children of the Tarzan and the Beau Geste series of books, and stories written for children based on the popular television series Bonanza. This was also acquired by Collins (Armada).

During this time he continued writing, producing a dozen books under his own name, the bestselling of which in 1956 was Tobruk Commando. In 1956 he also published a book about the Battle of the River Plate, with sales revenue going to the survivors’ fund, and in 1961 (under the pseudonym Alan Holmes) the book of Tony Hancock’s film The Rebel. In the 1970s he produced another five books, including the popular Glasshouse Gang series. Later in that decade he worked on freelance publishing ventures in Hong Kong and Australia. After returning to England, he turned his hand to bookselling, opening up a remainder bookselling business, Bargain Books. Until the end of his life he was an active campaigner for several charities, as well as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

In recent years several English publishers have been reissuing the best of his western and crime and foreign legion novels, and many of his dynamic detective thrillers are being published in the USA for the first time by The Borgo Press. among them Call in the Feds!, FBI Agent, FBI Showdown, and The Grab.

E. C. TUBB (1919–2010) was a British writer who penned some 140 novels and 230 short stories in his career, many of them in the science-fiction field. He’s best-known today for his Dumarest of Terra series of thirty-three novels. His Wildside Press and Borgo Press books include: The Best Science Fiction of E. C. Tubb (2004), Enemy of the State: Fantastic Mystery Stories (2011), Sands of Destiny: A Novel of the French Foreign Legion (2011), The Wager: Science Fiction Mystery Tales (2011), Tomorrow: Science Fiction Mystery Tales (2011), The Ming Vase and Other Science Fiction Stories (2011), The Wonderful Day: Science Fiction Short Stories (2012), Star Haven: A Science Fiction Tale (2012), Galactic Destiny: A Science Fiction Tale (2012), Assignment New York: A Mike Lantry Classic Crime Novel (2013), Only One Winner: Science Fiction Mystery Tales (2013), and a trilogy of historical novels (2013): Atilus the Slave, Atilus the Gladiator, and Atilus the Lanista.

English writer PETER OLDALE lives in Cornwall with his wife Adrienne, who is also a successful author, and with whom he has often collaborated. They are the authors of numerous bestselling nonfiction books on diverse subjects, including titles on plant propagation, growing fruit and vegetables, and Navigating Britain’s Coastline. His first fantasy story, “Problem Child” was published in Vision of Tomorrow in 1970, and was quickly anthologized by Richard Davis for The Year’s Best Horror Stories (1971). It has since been reprinted several times, most recently in Chilling Tales for Dark Nights; in March 2013 an Audio version of “Problem Child” was posted on YouTube.

ERIC C. WILLIAMS (1918–2010) was a British science fiction author who began his career as one of the most prominent prewar fans, appearing in early fanzines alongside such friends and contemporaries as John Carnell, Arthur C. Clarke, and William F. Temple. His first short stories appeared in Amateur Science Stories in 1937 and 1938. The war ended his writing ambitions, and he did not reemerge professionally until the mid-1960s, when he achieved success with several short stories in Carnell’s SF magazines, and most notably with “The Garden of Paris” in the Carnell-edited anthology, Weird Shadows from Beyond (1965). This was the first ‘Delacroix of U.N.O.’ story, of whom Williams would later write several more bizarre, off-trail stories. In 1968 his first SF novel The Time Injection appeared, and was followed by another nine, his last novel, Homo Telekins, appearing in 1981. He returned to writing short stories in 1999 when he was invited by Philip Harbottle to write for his magazines Fantasy Annual and Fantasy Adventures. He contributed more than a dozen stories (some under the pen name of Cyril Wellington), including further ‘Delacroix’ stories — many of which were translated into Italian.