When one thinks of the classic adventure-story authors of the pulp fiction era, H. Rider Haggard, Talbot Mundy, and Rafael Sabatini may come first to mind. But Arthur O. Friel's stellar contributions -- particularly his stories featuring Lourenco and Pedro, two workers on a rubber-tree plantation in the Amazon Jungle. Their adventures in the Amazon's mysterious back-country certainly deserve honorable mention. Here are tales of peril and last-minute rescue, brutal savages and men of honor, snake-worshipping armies and half-ape Lost Races-and many more! For in the shadows of the rain-forest, many evils lurk . . . human and otherwise! Features a new introduction by Darrell Schweitzer, eight short stories, and The Jararaca, a complete novel.

Included in this volume are historic interviews with Alfred Bester, Robert Silverberg, Brian Aldiss, James Gunn, Gardner Dozois, Norman Spinrad, Gordon R. Dickson, Ben Bova, Ted White, Jack Williamson, L. Sprague de Camp, Frank Belknap Long, Gahan Wilson, and Jerry Pournelle.

Set during the reign of the Emperor Commodus, here is Talbot Mundy's tale of palace intrigue, the brutalities and debaucheries of Rome, and a man who would make himself ruler of the civilized world! Features an introduction by scholar Darrell Schweitzer.

Achmed Abdullah's name was once synonymous with adventure. He published dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories in the pulp magazines of the early 20th century, thrilling millions of readers throughout the world. He wrote with authority about exotic peoples and places because he had lived a life filled with adventure, serving in the British army and travelling extensively to exotic locales before settling down to a literary career. Here is the first new book of Adbullah's stories in almost seventy years, sampling a broad range of his work. "A Charmed Life" tells of one life-changing night in India, when a white man glimpses a beautiful woman in danger and acts to rescue her. "Framed at the Benefactor's Club" is a fascinating, intricately plotted mystery set in Manhattan. "The Yellow Wife" is a chilling look at Chinese life in Chinatown. "Bismallah!" is a light adventure in Africa, as crooked traders try to put a successful rival company out of business. "Light" is a surprisingly effective supernatural tale. "A Yarkand Survey" tells the story of a corrupt governor sent on a survey mission that might cost him his life -- if he isn't careful! And "Fear" is the tale of two thieving white men in Africa and the weird fates that awaited them. Ranging from mystery to adventure to outright horror, from the streets of New York to the rooftops of Calcutta, from London's Chinatown to the jungles of Africa, here are tales of men caught up by plots and mysteries beyond their wildest imaginings! Features a new introduction by pulp scholar Darrell Schweitzer.

George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish author, teacher, and, briefly, clergyman, whose theology was too personal and idiosyncratic for him to remain on the pulpit for very long, but whose imagination led him to write two of the most important visionary novels of the 19th century, "Phantastes" and "Lilith."

A self-standing companion to Darrell Schweitzer's British Fantasy Award-nominated The Mask of the Sorcerer, the present volume collects all the Sekenre stories, which proved very popular when originally published in Weird Tales, Interzone, Adventures in Sword & Sorcery, and elsewhere.

Another selection of fascinating, informal conversations with the creators of Science Fiction and Fantasy, presented exactly as originally published.Here are authentic voices from 1983 through 2002: Peter S. Beagle, Octavia Butler, Philip Jos Farmer, Charles L. Harness, Michael Kandel, R.A. Lafferty, Jack McDevitt Tim Powers, Charles Sheffield, Susan Shwartz, Michael Swanwick, Evangeline Walton, Gene Wolfe, Jane Yolen, and George Zebrowski.

Clark Ashton Smith was a prodigy, who wrote Arabian Nights novels in his mid-teens and was heralded as a major voice in American poetry by the time he was nineteen. In one frantic burst in the middle 1930s, he wrote nearly a hundred strange, wondrous, and grotesque stories, most of which were published in Weird Tales, Strange Tales, Wonder Stories, and other pulps, but he was by no means a conventional pulp writer. A direct heir to Edgar Allan Poe and to the late Romantics and Decadents, a translator of Baudelaire, Smith wrote in baroque, jeweled prose of distant times and remote planets, of baleful magics and reanimated corpses, lost lovers, eldritch gods, and inexorable fate. He is also a writer whose works refuse to die, even after nearly a century. Think of him as the sorcerer-poet, alone in his eyrie in the dry California hills, dreaming his strange dreams and creating his unique worlds-of Zothique, the Earth's haunted last conti- nent at the end of time, Hyperborea, a prehistoric land, Posei- donis, the last foundering isle of Atlantis, and Averoigne, an unhistoried province of medieval France, thick with vampires. runes, transported from the sorcerer's lair by in- describable genii or winged spirits. His stories are altogether unlike anyone else's and quite wonderful, among the treasures of fantastic literature. This fine collection of Clark Ashton Smith's work reprints eight of his classic fantasies, including two set in Hyperborea.

If ever your heart has said, _The great days are no more. The golden afternoon of golden tales has faded into night, and I came late, born out of time, to warm my hands at the embers that flicker and fade hour by hour_ -- read this... Here are ghosts grim and gentle, red gold of Ophir, and fell weavings. Here is a tale to keep Scheherazade talking a hundred years. -- Gene Wolfe use of the best trappings of Fantasy, he employs a disquieting awareness of the dark nooks of the mind and soul...Best of all, Schweitzer is a story-teller, by whose smoky fire one may sit spell-bound. -- Tanith Lee Award, twice for Best Collection, and once for the novella To Become a Sorcerer, which forms the first four chapters of this book. He is also the author of _The White Isle, The Shattered Goddess, _ and nearly 300 short stories, many of which are collected in such volumes as _Tom O'Bedlam's Night Out, Transients, Refugees from an Imaginary Country, Nightscapes, _ and _The Great World and the Small._ An expert on fantastic fiction, who has written books about Lord Dunsany and H.P. Lovecraft, he is also co-editor of the legendary _Weird Tales_ magazin

Darrell Schweitzer has been three-times nominated for the World Fantasy Award, twice for Best Collection, and once for the novella "To Become a Sorcerer," which forms the first four chapters of this book. He is also the author of _The White Isle, The Shattered Goddess, _ and nearly 300 short stories, many of which are collected in such volumes as _Tom O'Bedlam's Night Out, Transients, Refugees from an Imaginary Country, Nightscapes, _ and _The Great World and the Small._ An expert on fantastic fiction, who has written books about Lord Dunsany and H.P. Lovecraft, he is also co-editor of the legendary _Weird Tales_ magazine.

_The Mask of the Sorcerer_ is one of the ten best fantasy novels of the past generation. The plot is compelling and moves at breathtaking pace. The characters are intriguing, multi-dimensional, lovingly drawn. The fear is chilling, the excitement intense. But mostly _The Mask of the Sorcerer_ is about magic. True magic. Magic that rings in the bones and the soul, magic that very few contemporary writers can understand or create. Darrell Schweitzer _is_ a sorcerer, and his knowledge of magic is awesome. _The Mask of the Sorcerer_ is authentic, a beacon shining above a sea of imitations. Unique as all great creations are unique, it stands alone." -- Morgan Llywelyn

Ever since the first edition of Thomas Ligotti's 'Songs of a Dead Dreamer' appeared in 1985, it was clear that here was an author of extraordinary brilliance and originality. In following years there has been a great deal of interest in the author and his works, although, until now, articles about him have mostly been scattered in obscure journals. Now, at last, here is a book about him, a symposium of explorations and examinations of the Ligottian universe by such leading critics as S.T. Joshi, Stefan Dzimianowicz, Robert M. Price. With a complete, up-to-date bibliography of Ligotti's work, two interviews with him, and even a fascinating essay by Ligotti himself. Also available in hardcover.

The second four issues of Weird Tales as published by DNA Publications present new work by Brian Stableford, Darrell Schweitzer, Ian Watson, William F. Nolan, Ramsey Campbell, Tanith Lee, Hugh B. Cave, and many more.

Darrell Schweitzer, author of The Mask of the Sorcerer and editor of Weird Tales collaborates with macabre artist-writer Jason Van Hollander on a series of remarkable fantasies, variously grotesque, horrific, ethereal, and darkly comic.

The Winter 1989/1990 issue of Weird Tales showcases Featured Author Brian Lumley (who contributed 3 stories and an interview) and Featured Artist Vincent di Fate (who contributed all the artwork). Also includes Keith Taylor, Phyllis Ann Karr, and more.

Here you will find the collective experience of three writers and editors distilled into a complete guide to writing science fiction. Separate chapters cover Idea, Plot, Character, Background, Science, Tragedy, and Comedy. Twelve stories, each a first sale by its author, illustrate the main points of the book. A foreword by Isaac Asimov gives an overall look at the task of becoming an SF writer, and an appendix by the editors explains exactly how to prepare a manuscript for publication.