EDWIN CHARLES TUBB is one of the most popular and prolific British writers of science fiction. Born between World War I and II, he became an avid reader of the American pulp magazines, but the second World War thwarted his writing ambitions. Post-war he was in the vanguard of an emerging group of talented British writers. They included Brian Aldiss, Sydney J. Bounds, John Brunner, Ken Bulmer, John Christopher, John Russell Fearn, Philip E. High and John Wyndham, who collectively helped lay the foundations for British science fiction as it exists today. Tubb's first professional sale, a short story, was published in 1951, in the leading British science fiction magazine New Worlds, where he quickly became established as a star contributor. The first of his many novels appeared as a paperback original shortly thereafter, and he was soon featuring in all of the other British SF magazines, most notably Authentic Science Fiction, Nebula Science Fiction, and Science Fantasy. Over the next decade, Tubb also became established in the leading American SF magazines, selling outstanding stories to Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy, If, and Planet Stories. best known as the creator of the long-running Dumarest of Terra series. Here then are hand-picked stories, the cream of the crop, making The Best Science Fiction of E.C. Tubb the publishing event of the year

Fasten your seatbelts for an anthology of turbulent tales curated by Stephen King and Bev Vincent. This exciting new collection, perfect for airport or aeroplane reading, includes an original introduction and story notes for each story by Stephen King, and brand new stories from Stephen King and Joe Hill. Stephen King hates to fly. Now he and co-editor Bev Vincent would like to share this fear of flying with you. Welcome to Flight or Fright, an anthology about all the things that can go horribly wrong when you're suspended six miles in the air, hurtling through space at more than 500 mph and sealed up in a metal tube (like - gulp! - a coffin) with hundreds of strangers. All the ways your trip into the friendly skies can turn into a nightmare, including some we'll bet you've never thought of before... but now you will the next time you walk down the jetway and place your fate in the hands of a total stranger. Featuring brand new stories by Joe Hill and Stephen King, as well as fourteen classic tales and one poem from the likes of Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Dan Simmons, and many others, Flight or Fright is, as King says, "ideal airplane reading, especially on stormy descents... Even if you are safe on the ground, you might want to buckle up nice and tight." Book a flight for this terrifying new anthology that will have you thinking twice about how you want to reach your final destination. Table of Contents: Introduction by Stephen King Cargo by E. Michael Lewis The Horror of the Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson The Flying Machine by Ambrose Bierce Lucifer! by E.C. Tubb The Fifth Category by Tom Bissell Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds by Dan Simmons Diablitos by Cody Goodfellow Air Raid by John Varley You Are Released by Joe Hill Warbirds by David J. Schow The Flying Machine by Ray Bradbury Zombies on a Plane by Bev Vincent They Shall Not Grow Old by Roald Dahl Murder in the Air by Peter Tremayne The Turbulence Expert by Stephen King Falling by James L. Dickey Afterword by Bev Vincent

A prolific author of hundreds of stories in the fields of SF, fantasy and westerns, E.C. Tubb, was best-known for his epic 33-volume Dumarest saga, a galaxy-spanning adventure series. Also active for many years in Fandom, he was both a founder member of the British Science Fiction Association and the first editor of its critical journal Vector. This omnibus collects two of his out of print classics, 'The Extra Man' and 'The Space-born', and posthumous novel, 'Fires of Satan', completed before his death and published now for the first time.

In the tradition of the old Ace Doubles (flip one side over to read the second book), here's the twenty-sixth Wildside Double:

STAR HAVEN: A SCIENCE FICTION TALE, by E. C. Tubb. Three days after asking the Captain of the Earth mothership to land his party of colonists on the planet Hyperon, Commander Williams has reason to worry. He's assumed that there'll be records left by the 500 original settlers that'll tell him what's happened to the men and women who were dropped here a decade ago. But there ARE no records--none that make any sense--and the colonists have just vanished, abandoning homes, equipment, and personal effects. Is the planet inimical to human life? The air's always pleasant, there are no animals to threaten anyone, and the vegetation grows everywhere, constantly producing edible fruit. In effect, Hyperon's a paradise world. But if that's the case...where are the people?

THE TIME TRAP: A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL, by John Russell Fearn. There were six people in millionaire Nick Clayton's chauffeur-driven limousine when it leaves a country house to return to London: Clayton himself; his girlfriend, Bernice Forbes; Horace Dawlish, his driver; the unhappily married financier Harvey Brand and his wife, Lucy; and the tragic socialite, Betty Danvers. But the car never reaches its destination; instead, it drives thirty miles down a country road--and just disappears And when the travelers suddenly find themselves in an alternate reality, one where time stands still, they begin to wonder if they'll ever escape...THE TIME TRAP