Golden Age Masterworks

The Golden Age Masterworks series was launched in January 2019, with a programme of titles that ran through to June, since when only a couple of new titles have appeared. Whether this is a sign of low sales or the influence of the pandemic reducing the number of releases in 2020-21 I don't know. Hopefully there will be more.

Doomsday Morning by C. L. Moore
ISBN 978-147322326-4, 10 January 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
Comus, the communications network/police force, has spread its web of power all across an America paralyzed by the after-effects of limited nuclear war. But in California, resistance is building against the dictatorship of Comus and Andrew Raleigh, president for life. For now Raleigh is dying and the powers of Comus are fading. It's the perfect time for the Californian revolutionaries to activate the secret weapon that alone can destroy America's totalitarian system and re-establish democracy.
    Yet Comus too has powers at its disposal, chief among them Howard Rohan. A washed-up actor until Comus offers him a second chance, Rohan will head a troupe of players touring in the heart of rebel territory.
    Howard Rohan, double agent, caught between the orders of Comus and rebels demands. Which side will he choose? Who will he play false - himself, or the entire country?

Galactic Patrol by E. E. 'Doc' Smith
ISBN 978-147322470-4, 10 January 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
The space-pirates of Boskone raided at will, menacing the whole structure of interstellar civilization. Master-minded by a super-scientist, their conquering fleets outgunned even the mighty space cruisers of the Galactic Patrol.
    When Lensman Kim Kinnison of the Patrol discovered the secret Boskonian base, it was invulnerable to outside attack. But where a battle-fleet would meet insuperable resistance, a single infiltrator might penetrate the Boskonian defenses - if he had the guts to take on million-to-one odds. Kinnison had guts enough to take on the odds - even with the future of the civilized Universe riding on his shoulders . . .
    Galactic Patrol is the first self-contained novel in E. E. 'Doc' Smith's epic Lensman series, one of the all-time classics of adventurous, galaxy-spanning science fiction.

Fury by Henry Kuttner
ISBN 978-147322255-7, 10 January 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
The Earth is long dead, blasted apart, and the human survivors who settled on Venus live in huge citadels beneath the Venusian seas in an atrophying, class-ridden society ruled by the Immortals - genetic mutations who live a thousand years or more. Sam Reed was born an immortal, born to rule those with a normal life-span, but his deranged father had him mutilated as a baby so that he wouldn't know of his heritage. And Sam grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and the law, thinking of the Immortals as his enemies. Then he reached the age of eighty, understood what had happened to him and went looking for revenge - and changed his decaying world forever.
    Fury is a powerful, dark and compelling novel that explores the sensual, bloody and urgent nature of humankind's striving.

The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke
ISBN 978-147322236-6, 10 January 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
It is the twenty-first century. On Mars a dedicated group of pioneers - among them some of Earth's finest brains - struggle to change the face of the planet . . .
    Science fiction writer Martin Gibson finally gets a chance to visit the research colony on the Red Planet. It's a dream come true - until he discovers the difficulties and perils of survival on another world . . . and the very real terror it holds

Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke
ISBN 978-147322237-3, 7 February 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
The time: 200 years after man's first landing on the Moon. There are permanent populations established on the Moon, Venus and Mars. Outer space inhabitants have formed a new political entity, the Federation, and between the Federation and Earth a growing rivalry has developed. EARTHLIGHT is the story of this emerging conflict.
    Two centuries from now there may be men who do not owe allegiance to any nation on Earth, or even to Earth itself. This brilliant story tells of a time when man stands upon the moon and the planets, tells of men now divided by the vast stretches of the Solar System but once again torn by jealousy and fear. With vaulting imagination Arthur C. Clarke describes life on the strange, awe-inspiring surface of the moon, scene of a most fantastic and exciting contest of arms.

Grey Lensman by E. E. 'Doc' Smith
ISBN 978-147322471-1, 7 February 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
Somewhere among the galaxies is the stronghold of Boskone - a network of brilliant space-criminals whose hunger for conquest threatens the continued existence of all known civilisation.
    But where is this stronghold? Boskonian bases are scattered across the universe - hidden by gigantic thought-screens that defy penetration. The best minds in the Galactic Patrol have tried. And failed. Now it is up to Lensman Kim Kinnison, using his fantastic powers, to infiltrate the Boskonian strongholds, find the location of the enemy's Grand Base - and smash it forever.
    But Kinnison doesn't know that the power of Boskone reaches further than anyone dreamed - into the Galactic Patrol itself . . .
    Grey Lensman is the fourth self-contained novel in E. E. 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series, one of the all-time classics of adventurous, galaxy-spanning science fiction.

Second Stage Lensman by E. E. 'Doc' Smith
ISBN 978-147322472-8, 7 March 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
Kim Kinnison, Number One man of his time, had faced challenges before - but rarely one as daunting as this. To him fell the perilous task of infiltrating the inner circle of Boskone, stronghold of galactic civilization's most deadly foe. Kinnison had to become a loyal Boskonian in every gesture, deed and thought. He had to work his way up through the ranks of an alien enemy organization, right into the highest echelons of power. Then it would be he who issued the orders - orders that would destroy his own civilization . . .
    Second Stage Lensmen is the fifth self-contained novel in E. E. 'Doc' Smith's epic Lensman series, one of the all-time classics of adventurous, galaxy-spanning science fiction.

Northwest of Earth by C. L. Moore
ISBN 978-147322254-0, 7 March 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
Among the best-written and most emotionally complex stories of the Pulp Era, the tales of intergalactic bootlegger Northwest Smith still resonate strongly more than 75 years after their first publication.
    From the crumbling temples of forgotten gods on Venus to the seedy pleasure halls of old Mars, the thirteen stories in Northwest of Earth blaze a trail through the underbelly of the solar system. The quick-drawing smuggler of the spaceways who would become the model for countless science fiction heroes, Northwest Smith is SF's original outlaw.

Jirel of Joiry by C. L. Moore
ISBN 978-147322252-6, 4 April 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
These are the classic tales of blood and honor that catapulted C.L. Moore into the legendary ranks of such acclaimed writers as Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs in the golden age of sword and sorcery. First published in the magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s, Moore's fantastic medieval adventures are heightened by a savage, romantic vision that helped define the genre, earning her recognition as a Grand Master for lifetime achievement by the World Fantasy Convention.

Children of the Lens by E. E. 'Doc' Smith
ISBN 978-147322473-5, 4 April 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
It was beginning to look as though no one could prevent the annihilation of the civilized Universe. For a weird intelligence was directing the destruction of all civilization from the icy depths of outer space.
    Kim Kinnison of the Galactic Patrol was one of the few men who knew how near the end was. And in the last desperate stratagem to save the Universe from total destruction, he knew he had to use his children as bait for the evil powers of the hell-planet Ploor . . .
    Children of the Lens is the sixth self-contained novel in E. E. 'Doc' Smith's epic Lensman series, one of the all-time classics of adventurous, galaxy-spanning science fiction.

Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke
ISBN 978-147322234-2, 2 May 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
In the year ten billion A.D., Diaspar is the last city on Earth. Agelss and unchanging, the inhabitants see no reason to be curious about the outside world. But one child, Alvin - only seventeen and the last person to be born in Diaspar - finds that he is increasingly drawn to what lies outside the city walls. Even though he knows the Invaders, who devastated the world, may still be out there...
    Later rewritten, expanded and republished as The City and the Stars, this early novella by one of the greats of science fiction remains a powerful and evocative depiction of the future of humanity...

Judgment Night by C. L. Moore
ISBN 978-147322253-3, 13 June 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
Released in 1952, Judgment Night collects five Moore novellas from the pages of editor John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Astounding Science Fiction magazine:
    "Judgment Night'' (first published in August and September, 1943) balances a lush rendering of a future galactic empire with a sober meditation on the nature of power and its inevitable loss;
    ''The Code'' (July, 1945) pays homage to the classic Faust with modern theories and Lovecraftian dread;
    ''Promised Land'' (February, 1950) and ''Heir Apparent'' (July, 1950) both document the grim twisting that mankind must undergo in order to spread into the solar system;
    ''Paradise Street'' (September, 1950) shows a futuristic take on the old western conflict between lone hunter and wilderness-taming settlers.
    Chosen by the author herself as the best of her longer-form writing, these stories show a gifted wordsmith working at the height of her talents.

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison
ISBN 978-147322768-2, 19 September 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
In the vastness of space, the crimes just get bigger and Slippery Jim diGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat, is the biggest criminal of them all. He can con humans, aliens and any number of robots time after time. Jim is so slippery that all the inter-galactic cops can do is make him one of their own.

The Deathworld Omnibus by Harry Harrison
ISBN 978-147322837-5, 14 November 2019, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
The planet was called Pyrrus, a strange place where all the beasts, plants and natural elements were designed for one specific purpose: to destroy man.
     The settlers there were supermen, twice as strong as ordinary men and with milli-second reflexes. They had to be. For their business was murder.
     It was up to Jason dinAlt, interplanetary gambler, to discover why Pyrrus had become so hostile during man's brief habitation.
    This omnibus contains all three novels in the Deathworld trilogy!

Sidewise in Time by Murray Leinster
ISBN 978-147322739-2, 3 September 2020, £8.99. Cover by Tithi Luadthong. Available via Amazon.
Ten selected short stories from the master of pulp, Murray Leinster - pen name of William Fitzgerald Jenkins, who's prolific career spanned the first six decades of the 20th Century. The Golden Age Masterwork of Sidewise in Time includes the Hugo Award-winning novella "Exploration Team".
    Full contents include: Sidewise in Time; The Runaway Skyscraper; The Mad Planet; Politics; Proxima Centauri; First Contact; A Logic Names Joe; De Profundis; If You Was a Moklin; Exploration Team.